CJI Misra’s 148-Word Long Sentence In Padmavati Order

In a 2015 judgment, Justice Misra had written a 192-word sentence.

Chief Justice Dipak Misra has done it again.

The judge known to quote extempore from Shakespeare peppering his orders/judgments with words from ancient texts/literature and famous for his word play has written a 148 word long sentence in an order he pronounced three days ago.

In a 2015 judgment, Justice Misra had written a 192-word sentence.

The 148 word sentence is the first paragraph in the November 28th order in M L Sharma Vs Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

The order dismisses a petition filed by advocate Manohar Lal Sharma seeking to restrain Director Bhansali from releasing his controversial movie abroad.

Unlike Justice Misra’s many sentences, this one however does not contain any tough words or literature and reads simple.

Here it is:

“The instant writ petition has been preferred under Article 32 of the Constitution of India giving it the nomenclature of public interest litigation basically with twin prayers that a film titled “Padmavati” should not be exhibited in other countries without obtaining the requisite certificate from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) under the Cinematograph Act, 1952 (for brevity, ‘the Act’) and the Rules and guidelines framed thereunder and further to issue a writ of mandamus to the Central Bureau 2 of Investigation (CBI), respondent No. 5 herein, to register an FIR against the respondent Nos. 1 and 2 and their team members for offence punishable under Section 7 of the Act read with Sections 153A, 295, 295A, 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 4 of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986 and to investigate and prosecute them in accordance with law”

As a judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Misra had written a 192 word para in a judgment delivered in 2015 (Priyanka Srivastava and Anr vs State of UP -2015)

The judge intended to say that the case was a frivolous one filed only to harass the opposite party and force him to agree to an out-of-court settlement. This is how the sentence read:

“The present appeal projects and frescoes a scenario which is not only disturbing but also has the potentiality to create a stir compelling one to ponder in a perturbed state how some unscrupulous, unprincipled and deviant litigants can ingeniously and innovatively design in a nonchalant manner to knock at the doors of the Court, as if, it is a laboratory where multifarious experiments can take place and such skillful persons can adroitly abuse the process of the Court at their own will and desire by painting a canvas of agony by assiduous assertions made in the application though the real intention is to harass the statutory authorities, without any remote remorse, with the inventive design primarily to create a mental pressure on the said officials as individuals, for they would not like to be dragged to a court of law to face in criminal cases, and further pressurize in such a fashion so that financial institution which they represent would ultimately be constrained to accept the request for “one- time settlement” with the fond hope that the obstinate defaulters who had borrowed money from it would withdraw the cases instituted against them.”

"This batch of writ petitions preferred under Article 32 of the Constitution of India exposits cavil in its quintessential conceptuality and percipient discord between venerated and exalted right of freedom of speech and expression of an individual, exploring manifold and multilayered, limitless, unbounded and unfettered spectrums, and the controls, restrictions and constrictions, under the assumed power of “reasonableness” ingrained in the statutory provisions relating to criminal law to reviver and uphold one’s reputation".

Some examples of  Justice Misra’s word play

Shyam Narayan Chouksey vs Union Of India (Uoi) And Ors. on 24 July, 2003 (The national anthem case in Madhya Pradesh High Court)

“National Anthem is to be sung with magna cum laude and nobody can ostracize the concept of summa cum laude. In the case at hand, as we have noted earlier the son of the protagonists sings the National Anthem as a surprise item. The presentation, according to us, is in medias res. The child actor forgets the line and utters the term "sorry". To some it may appear lapsus linguae, slip of the tongue or a natural forgetting but if the whole thing is perceived, understood and appreciated in complete scenario, it is the script writer's fertile imagination and the Director's id est"

Another para-- “The national anthem is pivotal and centri-podal to the basic conception of sovereignty and integrity of India. It is the marrow of nationalism, hypostasis of patriotism, nucleus of national heritage, substratum of culture and epitome of national honour.”

Voluntary health association of Punjab vs State of Punjab (Importance for creating awareness on female foeticide)

“They must understand and accept that it is an art as well as a science and not simple arithmetic. It cannot take the colour of a routine speech. The awareness camps should not be founded on the theory of Euclidian geometry. It must engulf the concept of social vigilance with an analytical mind and radiate into the marrows of the society. If awareness campaigns are not appositely conducted, the needed guidance for the people would be without meaning and things shall fall apart and everyone would try to take shelter in cynical escapism.”