New Delhi, February 13 Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Friday praised India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, as an "extraordinary institution builder," while recalling how, in 1959, the then Prime Minister had written a letter of apology to Supreme Court Judge Vivian Bose.
"There is much discussion about the relationship between the executive and the judiciary. Here is an extraordinary letter of apology written by the Prime Minister to Justice Vivian Bose on June 26, 1959 – who was then at the Supreme Court. What a truly extraordinary institution builder Nehru was!" Ramesh said on X, sharing Nehru's letter to Bose.
In his letter to Justice Bose, Nehru wrote, "I have been constantly on the move during the last many days. It was my intention to write to you earlier regarding some remarks I had made at a press conference, but because of my travelling, I could not do so."
"A few days ago, when I was in Trivandrum, I received a letter from the Honorary Secretary of the Calcutta Bar Library Club, along with a resolution passed at a meeting of the Calcutta Bar disapproving of some remarks I had made about you. As soon as I received this letter, I sent a reply to the Secretary of the Calcutta Bar Library Club," Nehru had said.
"I would like to personally express my deep regret at the remarks I made in this connection at the press conference I addressed in Delhi earlier this month. I fully realise that those remarks were improper, and I should not have allowed myself to utter them," the then Prime Minister had said.
Nehru said he was taken rather unawares by the questions put to him and he was thinking of many other things at that time as well.
"I trust you will be good enough to accept my apology for this impropriety which I have committed," Nehru had said.