SC’s Kanwar Yatra order: Justice Bhatti’s Kerala restaurant remarks distorted by the Right Wing

In an interim order, a Division Bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and S V N Bhatti of the Supreme Court on Monday, July 22, prohibited the enforcement of the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand directives to restaurants along the Kanwar Yatra routes to display the names of the owners and employees. The Bench said the eateries might only be required to display the kind of food they were selling.

While hearing a bunch of petitions against the directives issued by the two BJP-ruled states, Justice S V N Bhatti recounted his experiences of eating at a veg restaurant owned by a Muslim in Kerala.

Justice Bhatti joined the Kerala high court at Ernakulam on March 19, 2019. He was the Acting Chief Justice of the high court from April 24, 2023, till he became the Chief Justice on June 1, 2023. On July 14, 2023, he was sworn in as a judge of the Supreme Court of India.

During an exchange in the courtroom with advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi representing Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, who was one of the petitioners, Justice Bhatti remarked that there was a veg restaurant owned by a Hindu and another owned by a Muslim in Kerala and he used to go to the latter as it was “maintaining international standards with regard to safety, cleanliness and hygiene…”

Several Right-wing social media handles took exception to Justice Bhatti’s remarks on his choice of an eatery in Kerala.

Raushan Sinha, who runs the X handle @MrSinha_, tweeted whether according to Justice Bhatti “Hindus don’t maintain international standard (probably hygiene) in their restaurants, MusIims do?”, and whether “since he prefers MusIim restaurants, he wants all Hindus to do the same?”

So as per SC judge, Hindus don’t maintain international standard (probably hygiene) in their restaurants, MusIims do?

And since he prefers MusIim restaurants, he wants all Hindus to do the same? Isn’t it like declaring all Hindus unhygienic and a boycott call against them? pic.twitter.com/jzeyKWfyWK

— Mr Sinha (@MrSinha_) July 22, 2024

Vijay Patel, who runs the handle @Vijaygajera on X and calls himself an investigative reporter, tweeted that Justice Bhatti had said that “Hindus have substandard restaurants while Muslims maintain international standards!”

Justice Bhatti is saying that Hindus have substandard restaurants while Muslims maintain International standards!

The collegium system has given us gems of the judiciary! pic.twitter.com/o6Ts3T9XIh

— Vijay Patel🇮🇳 (@vijaygajera) July 22, 2024

Ajeet Bharti claimed on verified his X handle (@ajeetbharti) that Justice Bhatti’s personal opinion represented all the Muslim-run restaurants in the world.

वाह भट्टी जी! इनका व्यक्तिगत विचार पूरे विश्व के हर रेस्तराँ, जो मुसलमानों द्वारा संचालित हो, का प्रतिनिधित्व करते हैं। जब ऐसे जज हों, जजमेंट भी इंटरनेशनल स्टैंडर्ड के ही आएँगे। चार अपवाद ले आओ, कुर्सी से बोल दो, हो गया। pic.twitter.com/mjtsmiU9oF

— Ajeet Bharti (@ajeetbharti) July 22, 2024

Fact Check

Live-tweeting the proceedings from the Supreme Court, Bar and Bench reported the conversation as follows:

Singhvi: These yatras did not start yesterday but since before independence. How much backward integration do you do? Cooker, server, grower has to be non-minority? Lordships raised the right constitutional question.

Adv C U Singh: Some want without onion or garlic also.

Singhvi: But we won’t ask owner.

Justice Bhatti: on that I am completely with you. Without disclosing the name of the city I will share with you. There were two vegetarian hotels, one by Hindu and one by Muslim. I went to the latter, because I preferred the hygiene standards there. He was a Dubai returnee. But he displayed everything on the board.

Singhvi: I am a non practicing Jain, but I know people in the community don’t have onion garlic.

LiveLaw, too, tweeted the conversation in its reporting from the court.

J Bhatti: There is one veg hotel run by a Hindu, and one run by a Muslim…in Kerala…As the judge of that state, I used to go the one run by the Muslim. He was maintaining international standards#SupremeCourt #KanwarYatra

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) July 22, 2024

Several prominent media outlets covered the issue and reported on Justice Bhatti’s remarks. Here are reports by TOI, Hindustan Times, NDTV and Free Press Journal.

As is clear from all the above reports and the real-time tweets shared by the two legal reporting platforms, Justice Bhatti recounted his personal experience and did not speak for all. In other words, his comments were clearly marked by specificity: He said he used to go to a particular restaurant run by a Muslim in Kerala. Several of the reports mentioned above make it clear in the headline itself by quoting the words ‘used to go to…” verbatim.

Now, if one takes a close look at the language of the tweets by the Right-wing influencers in this context, one notices that this specificity is missing in the way they paraphrased Justice Bhatti’s remarks so as to generalize them.

Ajeet Bharti directly claimed that the judge’s remarks represented all Muslim-run restaurants. Raushan Sinha asked a number of rhetorical questions, which by definition, are used “for the sake of persuasive effect rather than as a genuine request for information, the speaker implying that the answer is too obvious to require a reply…”

Sinha asked whether according to Justice Bhatti international standard was not maintained in restaurants run by Hindus and was maintained in those run by MusIims. The use of plurals in his tweet — ‘Hindus’, ‘Muslims’, ‘Restaurants’ — contrasts sharply with the use of singulars in the judges actual statement — ‘one veg hotel run by a Hindu’ ‘one run by a Muslim’ etc.

Sinha also asked since Justice Bhatti preferred MusIim restaurants, whether he wanted all Hindus to do the same and if he was declaring all Hindus unhygienic and giving out a boycott call against them. However, as already pointed out, there was no generalization in the said remarks by the judge. He recounted his own experience and compared a specific Muslim-run restaurant to a specific one run by a Hindu in a specific place. All the rhetorical questions in Sinha’s tweet generalized Justice Bhatti’s remarks in a misleading way.

Vijay Patel also used the plurals in order to generalize the remarks. “Hindus have substandard restaurants while Muslims maintain international standards,” he quoted the judge as saying, whereas the judge spoke in singulars and did not mean all Hindus, all Muslims or all restaurants run by them.

To conclude, the tweets by Right-wing influencers questioning/condemning Justice Bhatti’s remarks during the Kanwar Yatra hearing distorted the actual statement by the judge by generalizing it and misrepresenting it in a way that falsely suggested that Justice Bhatti spoke about all Hindu-run and all Muslim-run restaurants.

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