‘Should we regulate handkerchiefs too?’ SC junks plea on non-biodegradable lawyer bands

Finding no cause for judicial interference — or wardrobe policing, the bench dismissed the plea with a crisp “Dismissed”.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition calling for a ban on non-biodegradable lawyer bands, with Chief Justice of India Bhushan R Gavai remarking that such minute matters fell far outside the court’s remit. If the top court began entertaining such requests, the CJI said, it might soon be asked to regulate even the use of “handkerchiefs”.

A lawyer outside Supreme Court of India. (PTI)

The plea was filed by Sakshi Vijay, who introduced herself as the wife of a lawyer and said that during her Diwali cleaning she stumbled upon a stash of discarded lawyer bands at home — all, she claimed, made of non-biodegradable material. Disturbed by the revelations lurking in her festive house cleaning, she urged the court to step in and regulate these cloth accessories on environmental grounds.

But the bench, also comprising Justice K Vinod Chandran, was unconvinced. “Tomorrow, can we also start monitoring how a handkerchief is going to be used and reused? How far can a constitutional court go in monitoring all this?” asked the bench, before expanding the analogy to village and urban waste collection systems — none of which, he noted, fell within the court’s domain either.

Despite Vijay making the Union law ministry and Bar Council of India parties to her petition and seeking a mandamus directing a nationwide eco-friendly mechanism for collecting, segregating and recycling used lawyer bands, the court remained firm.

Finding no cause for judicial interference — or wardrobe policing, the bench dismissed the plea with a crisp “Dismissed”, letting the lawyer bands live to flutter another day.