PIL lawyer badmouths Parliament, faces life ban by Supreme Court

May,2,2015: The Supreme Court is considering permanently forbidding coal scam PIL lawyer Manohar Lal Sharma from ever filing PILs again after he called parliamentarians “in-house criminals, corrupt.”

In a written order, a Constitution Bench headed by Justice J.S. Khehar gave Mr. Sharma a week's time to respond to a show-cause notice on why he should not be barred from representing PIL cases ever again.

Mr. Sharma, whose name is synonymous with the legal fight that led to the Supreme Court cancelling illegal coal block allocations and their fresh auctions, has a week to respond to the notice.

The order from the Bench came when Mr Sharma was submitting his arguments as a petitioner-in-person during the hearing on the validity of the National Judicial Appointments Commission law. A stern-looking Justice Khehar pointed to portions in his case paperbook, while saying that they made sweeping observations against law-makers, calling them “in-house criminals” and “corrupt politicians”. Justice Khehar termed the allegations as “rubbish”.

“This is an insult to the Parliament. This is an insult to our country,” Justice Madan B. Lokur, a judge on the Bench, said.

Justice Khehar said the court cannot be converted into a political platform.

“We decide questions of law. We intend to take action against you for these scandalous allegations... respond to us in a week why you should not be debarred from canvassing any PILs,” Justice Khehar said.

Mr. Sharma, a defence lawyer in the Nirbhaya rape case, has already been issued a notice by the Bar Council of India.