The Chief Justice (CJ) was very "potrified" at the pot-calling by a judge in a High Court in Penang.

He was afraid that it would give further credence to the growing belief that the judiciary continues to rot and goes to the pot

It would add on to the already bad-enough and recent public perception that the CJ has been merely pottering around the Courts.

Coming back to the High Court judge, the man had likened the behaviour of a senior (Court of Appeal) judge to a pot calling a kettle black.

Needless to say, the High Court judge has been and is as good a pot as the senior judge.

This can be seen in his equally "coarse and crude" remarks in Court and in his decisions which, of course, have been so pleasing to the country's reigning despot.

It was by no accident that junior pot had chosen an accident case, to pounce on senior pot in public — i.e., he himself was a pot calling a kettle black!

He had made use of the judgment of an unrelated personal injury case to incorporate his personal injury statement.

Senior pot, he had claimed, had been taking personal potshots at him in public. Further attacks will be met with a "swift" response, shot junior pot.

Senior pot had, when overturning junior pot's decision in a trial, said that judges should not launch contempt proceedings vindictively and "purely for personal ego".

Apparently, junior pot took it very personally, and felt that senior pot was calling him a revengeful and puffed-up pot.

Enough was enough and so he huffed and he puffed, and dished out a diatribe in response to senior pot's "dastardly attacks".

Lawyers and the public who witnessed the pot-calling were dumb-founded by this drastic detour from judicial decorum and dignity.

Ironically, junior pot was the judge who had once prevented the Bar Council from discussing the travels of a former CJ (who had very proudly revealed that he had often kept an eye on lawyers each time he went to potty.)

"The judiciary is not to be vilified" junior pot had preached then — but now he lets fly and vilifies a senior member of the judiciary, with utmost pleasure!

"...nothing negates judicial dignity more directly and visibly than a judge's public dispute which sullies the respectability of the judiciary," so declared the CJ recently.

Junior pot should have taken his "rum-blings" to senior pot first or complained to the CJ if senior pot were to dismiss them as only a "rum-pus".

As for senior pot, history has it that he is quite capable of both the brilliant and base, in his judgments.

His decision and comments on junior pot's ruling gives the impression of a very fair judge who believes that the courts should be more open to criticism.

Yet it was senior pot who had sent to jail a very respected MP whose "crime" was to gain justice for a 15-year-old rape victim.

Who can forget his cold and cutting conclusion then: "It is time that the court sends a clear message that it cannot tolerate any attack on the judiciary"?

Was senior pot's hallucination of an attack and his glaring intolerance, a "vindictive pursuit" on behalf of the government to remove the MP from parliament and to satisfy his personal ego?

The CJ is very worried that there will be more pot-calling. A potshot for a potshot will made the whole judiciary look like a bunch of crackpots.

Alas, perhaps the CJ has himself to blame for what is happening. He had the chance to patch up the judicial "potholes" left unattended since 1988, but he chose recently to plunge into "a pit of infamy" instead.

It is not surprising that he has decided to plod along on the matter.