Karnataka high court judge expresses regret for ‘Pakistan’ remark

BENGALURU: Finding himself in the eye of a storm over his controversial remarks that went viral, Karnataka HC's Justice V Srishananda expressed "regret" in an open-court statement Saturday. Earlier, SC had taken a dim view of his purported gratuitous reference to a Muslim-majority Bengaluru locality as Pakistan.
"A few observations made during judicial proceedings were reported out of context on social media platforms.The observations were unintentional and not meant to hurt any individual or any section of society. If such observations hurt any individual or any section of society or community, I express my sincere regrets," Justice Srishananda said.

The judge said the comments in question were not directed at the woman advocate, but her client. He said he would have clarified this to the advocate concerned had she been present in court.
Senior advocate Vivek Subbareddy, the president of the Advocates' Association of Bengaluru, who was present in court, said judgments rendered by Justice Srishananda were excellent, "but lordships, these side-'kathas' and 'upakathas' during hearing are affecting lawyers too when these are live-streamed (sic)". At this juncture, Justice Srishananda said he would stop them.
Advocates' Association of Bengaluru office-bearers pointed out that YouTubers posting clips of live-streaming of court proceedings with wrong and misleading headlines and tag lines were affecting lawyers. The registrar general and registrar judicial will have to control such YouTubers, they added.