A day after Justice Biren Vaishnav of the Gujarat High Court apologised for his outburst against his colleague Justice Mauna Bhatt on the bench, the High Court has asked YouTube to remove the videos of the apology claiming copyright violation, The Indian Express has reported.
On October 23, Justice Vaishnav upbraided his colleague, Justice Bhatt, for voicing a difference of opinion in a batch of tax cases.
With the Gujarat High Court live-streaming its proceedings, a video of the incident went viral on social media. The High Court has now pulled down the clip of that exchange from its archives.
However, while Justice Vaishnav’s apology on October 25 is still available on the website of the High Court, the court has asked YouTube to take down videos of the judge’s apology.
The exchange between the judges was related to income tax cases where the department had issued notices to reopen assessment for the last six years.
“Then you differ, yaar. Then you differ… You have differed in one, differ in the other,” Justice Vaishnav said. When Justice Bhatt responded that “it is not the question of differing…,” Justice Vaishnav cut her off and asked her to pass a separate differing order.
“Then don’t murmur. Then you pass a separate order,” Justice Vaishnav said. He then walked off and said that the bench will not take up any other matters for the day.
On October 25, Justice Vaishnav apologised: “Before we begin the session, what happened on Monday shouldn’t have happened, I was wrong. I’m sorry for that and we begin a new session. It shouldn’t have happened, I don’t know, I was wrong.”
