The Supreme Court has removed an adverse observation made earlier against Professor Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti, the former Vice-Chancellor of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS). The Court held that remarks that cast a stigma on a person without any finding of guilt amount to punishment without due adjudication.
The order was delivered by a bench of Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Prasanna B. Varale while deciding a miscellaneous application filed by Professor Chakrabarti in Vaneeta Patnaik v. Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti & Others, Civil Appeal No. 11786 of 2025. The applicant sought deletion of two paragraphs from the Court’s judgment dated September 12, 2025, especially a sentence in paragraph 34 that implied personal wrongdoing.
Senior Advocate Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the applicant, argued that the challenged sentence created an unwarranted stigma. He said the Court had not held Professor Chakrabarti guilty of any misconduct, and such a remark would effectively operate as punishment.
Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora, for the appellant, opposed the plea. She argued that the application was not maintainable and that the proper route was a review petition, since the remark had been made consciously by the Court.
Dr. Singhvi and Senior Advocate Madhavi Divan clarified that the applicant was not seeking a review of the judgment itself but only removal of a stigmatic observation. For that reason, they argued, a miscellaneous application was the correct remedy.
The Court chose not to engage with the question of maintainability. It said it would treat the filing either as a miscellaneous application or as a review application and decide the issue on merits.
Justice Mithal acknowledged that the original sentence was inserted to inform the public about an incident involving the applicant. But the bench accepted that the remark was inappropriate in the absence of any finding on merits, especially since the incident appeared to still be under investigation pursuant to an FIR.
The Court concluded that the observation had to be removed to avoid unfair prejudice. It deleted the sentence beginning with “Thus” and ending with “personally” from paragraph 34 of the earlier judgment.
The ruling reinforces a crucial principle: courts must not make adverse or stigmatic observations about individuals when there is no finding of guilt, misconduct, or wrongdoing. Even comments intended for public context can have serious reputational consequences, particularly for academics and public officials, and therefore must be made with caution.
The Court also underlined that arguments on merits by themselves do not amount to judicial findings. Without a clear adjudication, remarks that imply personal blame violate natural justice.
The application (I.A. No. 242096/2025) was allowed, and the matter was disposed of.