CJI Ranjan Gogoi on interviews to journalists: Bitter truths must remain in memory

Outgoing Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said on Friday that Judges are required to 'maintain' silence while exercising their freedom. Gogoi said this on his last working day while explaining why he cannot give one-on-one interviews to journalists. Ranjan Gogoi is retiring on Sunday after a tenure of over 13 months.

"...while you have the Bar whose members can exercise their freedom of speech to the extent of even pushing the boundaries of such freedom, the Bench requires its judges to 'maintain' silence, while exercising their freedoms," Chief Justice Gogoi said in a statement.

"This is not to say that Judges do not speak. They do speak, but do so only out of functional necessity, and no more. Bitter truths must remain in memory," he said.

Ranjan Gogoi sat on the bench for the last time in court number 1 of the Supreme Court on Friday. Court number 1 of the top court is the courtroom of the Chief Justice of India.

"I chose to belong to an institution whose strength lay in public confidence and trust, earned not through good press, but through our work as judges," Chief Justice Gogoi said.

"Rather, such outreach ought to be symbolic of an extraordinary situation, demanding an exception to the norm," he said.

CJI was among the four sitting top court judges who had held a first-of-its-kind press conference in January 2018 when Dipak Misra was the Chief Justice. They had alleged selective "assignment of cases to preferred judges" and "sensitive cases were being allotted to junior judges" by Justice Dipak Misra.

Ranjan Gogoi took oath as the 46th Chief Justice of India on October 3 last year, succeeding Justice Dipak Misra. He is the first person from the northeast to become the Chief Justice.