Willing to apologise a 100 times says Justice Mishra after being told to be courteous

New Delhi, Dec 05: Justice Arun Mishra of the Supreme Court has told a bunch of senior advocates that if his utterances have hurt any advocate, then he expresses his apology.

A batch of senior advocates had approached Justice Arun Mishra with a request of being courteous to the Bar, following which he made the statement.

The incident comes in the wake of a heated exchange that took place in the Supreme Court between Justice Mishra and senior lawyer, Gopal Shankarnarayanan during a hearing on Tuesday.

A Constitution Bench was hearing a plea relating to a land acquisition case. Justice Mishra pointed out to Shankarnarayanan that his arguments were repetitive. He was told not to argue anything that had already been argued and only approach a particular provision in the law.

When Shankarnarayanan asked if he could advance arguments on Section 24, Justice Mishra asked, "are you retorting us? How dare you?" Justice Mishra had also warned the senior advocate of contempt. Shankarnarayanan then shut his file and walked out of court.

When the bunch of senior advocates approached Justice Mishra and asked him to be courteous to the Bar, he said that he is willing to apologise a 100 times if he has hurt anyone, even if the advocate is half his age.