The Madras High Court on Wednesday (August 13, 2025) refused to entertain a public interest litigation (PIL) petition, which sought to forbear retired judges from issuing public letters, appeals, or statements intended at influencing pending judicial proceedings, particularly in matters involving allegations against sitting judges.
First Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice Sunder Mohan said, no such prohibitory orders, as sought by the PIL petitioner R. Varaaki of Chennai, could be passed against retired judges and said, the sitting judges would not be influenced with such appeals by retired judges. “This is all a publicity interest litigation. The matter will be looked into... you need not poke your nose into this,” the Chief Justice told the petitioner’s counsel G.S. Mani.
In his affidavit, the petitioner had referred to the wide circulation of a recent written appeal, supposedly made by eight retired judges, led by K. Chandru, objecting to Justice G.R. Swaminathan having questioned Madurai-based advocate S. Vanchinathan regarding allegations of caste bias levelled by him against the judge.
The petitioner said that K.K. Sasidharan, one of those eight retired judges whose names had been mentioned in the appeal, had immediately issued a rebuttal, clarifying that he was neither consulted regarding the issuance of such an appeal nor had he accorded his consent to issue the written appeal in his name.
