NEW DELHI: A day after a group of retired judges criticised Union home minister Amit Shah for his remarks on the Salwa Judum judgment of opposition vice-presidential nominee Justice B Sudershan Reddy, another set of 56 retired judges issued a counter statement with “strong disagreement” on Tuesday. This group, which included four former Supreme Court judges, former Chief Justices P Sathasivam, Ranjan Gogoi, AK Sikri and former judge MR Shah, urged their “brother judges” to “desist from lending their names to politically motivated statements.”“Let those who have chosen the path of politics defend themselves in that realm. The institution of the judiciary must be kept above and distinct from such entanglements,” the 56 judges said in their statement.They pointed to a “predictable pattern” where every major political development is followed by statements from the same group of people, which they said try to “cloak their political partisanship under the language of judicial independence.”On Justice Reddy’s decision to contest as the INDIA bloc’s vice-presidential candidate, the statement said this was his personal choice. “A fellow retired judge has chosen, of his own volition, to contest the election for the office of the Vice President of India. By doing so, he has stepped into the political arena as a candidate supported by the opposition. Having made that choice, he must defend his candidacy like any other contestant, in the realm of political debate. To suggest otherwise is to stifle democratic discourse and to misuse the cover of judicial independence for political convenience.”The statement further said: “Judicial independence is not threatened by the criticism of a political candidate. What truly tarnishes the reputation of the judiciary is when former judges repeatedly issue partisan statements, giving the impression that the institution itself is aligned with political battles. As a result of these tactics, because of the fault of a few, the larger body of judges ends up being painted as partisan coterie. This is neither fair nor healthy for India’s judiciary or democracy.”A day earlier in Kerala, Amit Shah had attacked Justice Reddy over his past ruling on Salwa Judum, a state-backed anti-Naxalite campaign in Chhattisgarh. Shah said, “Sudershan Reddy is the person who helped Naxalism. He gave Salwa Judum judgment. If the Salwa Judum judgment had not been given, the Naxal terrorism would have ended by 2020. He is the person who was inspired by the ideology that gave Salwa Judum judgment.“On the same day, a different group of 18 retired Supreme Court judges wrote separately to Amit Shah, objecting to his comments against Justice Reddy. They described Shah’s remarks as “unfortunate” and advised that it would be wise to refrain from “name-calling.”