An attempt was made to hurl a shoe at the Chief Justice of India, BR Gavai, during court proceedings in the Supreme Court on Monday (6th October). According to news reports, the incident occurred when a bench led by CJI Gavai was hearing cases that were being mentioned before it.

The advocate, identified as 71-year-old Rakesh Kishor, approached the dais, removed his shoe, and attempted to hurl it at the Chief Justice. However, security personnel present intervened in time and prevented the attack; the advocate was then escorted out of the court premises.

The advocate reportedly shouted, “Sanatan ka apman nahi sahenge (We will not tolerate any insult to Sanatan)”. He was handed over to the police, but was later released because the Supreme Court Registry declined to press charges. The Bar Council of India, however, responded by suspending the advocate’s license. Inside the courtroom, the Supreme Court proceedings went on without disruption: CJI Gavai instructed the lawyers present not to get distracted by the incident, and the hearing continued as if unaffected.

The Advocate Says He Was Hurt by the CJI’s Remarks on Hindu Faith

The 71-year-old advocate, Rakesh Kishor, explained to the media that he was “deeply hurt” by what he called Hinduphobic remarks made by CJI Gavai during a prior hearing. The remarks, he claimed, mocked the faith of a Hindu petitioner who had asked the Supreme Court to order restoration of the Lord Vishnu idol at the Javari temple in Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh.

During that hearing, CJI Gavai had dismissed the petitioner with sarcasm, saying “This is purely publicity interest litigation. Go and ask the deity itself to do something now. You say you are a staunch devotee of Lord Vishnu. So go and pray now.” While the petition might have technically lacked merit and could have been rejected on procedural grounds, the advocate and others argue that the mocking tone toward a petitioner’s faith was unnecessary and offensive.

Congress and the Left-Liberal Ecosystem Bring Caste into the Incident

While no one should condone the throwing of a shoe in a courtroom as a reaction to hurt feelings, the Congress and the Left-liberal ecosystem wasted no time in shifting the focus. They made the incident about CJI Gavai’s caste rather than the immediate issue at hand.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the event served as a reminder that “caste-based prejudice and Manuvaadi mindsets continue to persist.” Senior Advocate Indira Jaising also weighed in, calling the event “a casteist remark against the Chief Justice” and an act of “singling him out from within the institution.” According to her, the attempt to attack the CJI should be read not just as an assault on an individual but as an attack on the institution itself.

One may struggle to see how CJI Gavai’s caste is relevant to a disgruntled advocate’s reaction to remarks he found offensive. But within Congress and Left circles, narratives come first. To them, it is not about the individual or the act—it is always about promoting a narrative that fits their agenda.

How the Left-Liberal Ecosystem Ignored Gavai’s Past Views on Judge Loya’s Death

What is striking is how the same leftist voices, including Jaising, ignored CJI Gavai’s earlier statements when he dismissed foul play in the death of CBI Judge B.H. Loya in 2014. In 2017, while serving as a judge at the Bombay High Court, Gavai spoke to NDTV and rejected conspiracy theories around Judge Loya’s death. He visited Loya in the hospital after a cardiac arrest, and said he saw Loya’s body in the ICU, with doctors attempting resuscitation, and observed no blood on Judge Loya’s clothes nor evidence of foul play. Yet, despite these assertions, the Congress and Left ecosystem continued to claw at conspiracies, especially because Judge Loya had been presiding over the Sohrabuddin murder trial in which then BJP President and now Union Home Minister Amit Shah was named as a key accused. (See background on the Loya case investigations.)

Jaising and her allies did not treat those earlier remarks as relevant then. Instead, they relentlessly wove and circulated theories that served their larger narrative against the BJP and central government. The fact that Gavai had publicly dismissed foul play did not deter them from continuing to push suspicions and conspiracies.

When Indira Jaising and Her Allies Tried to Tarnish the Judiciary

Indira Jaising has long been vocal about the judiciary, sometimes in ways that have drawn sharp rebuke from the Supreme Court itself. A known Congress loyalist, she was part of a legal lobby that repeatedly suggested that Amit Shah and the BJP had some connection to Judge Loya’s death. The Supreme Court, in 2018, declared Loya’s death as natural and rebuked those making baseless claims. In one of its historic rulings, a bench led by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, with Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud, admonished advocates—including Jaising, Dushyant Dave, and Prashant Bhushan—for “attempts to scandalise the court and obstruct the course of justice.” The bench said they were trying to inflate prejudice and damage the dignity of judges, particularly stressing the position of then Bombay High Court Judge Gavai.

It strikes as hypocritical that Jaising and her allies would now frame the shoe incident as an attack on caste or the institution when for years they criticized the same judge vigorously. In fact, to this day, conspiracy theorists latch onto Loya’s death, ignoring judicial findings and testimony in favour of shadowy narratives about a “deep state” or central government interference. They sideline the recorded deposition and medical evidence simply because it does not fit their preordained narrative.

Back then, some opinion-makers even speculated that Gavai was being fast-tracked to become Chief Justice because of the statement he gave dismissing foul play in Loya’s death. Now, after he made sarcastic remarks in the Vishnu idol restoration case, the same individuals are recasting him as a victim of "caste prejudice"—all to suit the narrative du jour.

The shift in stance is stark. The same Justice Gavai, once branded by the liberal Left as a “government stooge,” is now spotlighted as an alleged target of prejudice. The rapid repositioning makes clear how pliable these narratives are. The reaction of Congress and the Left-liberal ecosystem to the shoe-hurling incident lays bare their pattern: they stand for no principle but their own agenda, which thrives by exploiting fault lines. To them, there is no essential difference between CJI Gavai and the former CJI D.Y. Chandrachud—once their darling—except that when a judge ceases to serve their interest, he is discarded.