Cancerous Corruption
Justice H. L. Gokhale of the
Supreme Court has accused former Chief Justice of India K. G. Balakrishnan of
misrepresenting facts to conceal sacked telecom minister A. Raja’s attempt to
influence Justice R. Reghupathy of the Madras High Court on behalf of two murder
accused known to the DMK leader.
Justice Gokhale, who was
Chief Justice of the Madras High Court at the time of the incident, asserted
that contrary to Justice Balakrishnan’s claim, he had forwarded to the former
CJI Justice Reghupathy’s letter identifying Raja as the Union minister who tried
to lobby for anticipatory bail to the murder accused.
Rebutting the former CJI’s
statement that he had never received Justice Reghupathy’s letter naming Raja,
Justice Gokhale said, “I may point out that Justice Reghupathy’s letter was
already with him (Justice Balakrishnan) and in the second paragraph thereof,
Justice Reghupathy had specifically mentioned the name of minister Raja.”
When asked on December 8 why
he had not told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the former minister’s
attempt to influence the judiciary, Justice Balakrishnan had told TOI that he
had received no complaint from Justice Reghupathy mentioning Raja’s attempt to
fix a judicial order.
Justice Balakrishnan’s
account was repudiated by Justice Gokhale who took the unusual step of issuing a
press release on Tuesday to “clear the erroneous impression about his role in
the matter”. The Supreme Court judge said, “I also informed the former CJI about
the petitions filed in the Madras High Court concerning the incident. Continuity
of correspondence clearly shows that the incident related to advocate
Chandramohan and minister Raja had been brought to the notice of the former CJI.”
‘Chandramohan’ refers to a lawyer, R. Chandramohan who, on June 12 last year, is
believed to have told Justice Reghupathy about Raja’s interest in the
anticipatory bail petition of the two murder accused, a father-son duo.
Chandramohan had handed over a mobile to Justice Reghupathy in his chamber
saying that Raja wanted to speak with him.
Clearly wrongfooted by
Justice Gokhale’s public clarification, Justice Balakrishnan partly retracted
his version to acknowledge that “I had indeed received Justice Reghupathy’s
letter forwarded to me by Justice Gokhale.” He, however, insisted that the
letter did not name Raja or, for that matter, any minister. The former CJI also
argued that “since Justice Reghupathy had addressed his letter to Justice
Gokhale, I as CJI could not have made the contents public”.
But Gokhale’s version was
boosted by the endorsement from Justice Reghupathy himself. “I am thankful to
Justice Gokhale,” the former judge of Madras High Court said.
Though he did not elaborate,
his ‘thank you’ seemed to tip the balance in favour of the SC judge’s version of
the contents of the letter. The episode is yet another blow to judiciary’s
image. It comes at a time when other institutions — from the executive to the
army to the media — are under scrutiny, and can aggravate the unease with the
establishment.
When told that Justice
Gokhale’s press release has put him in the embarrassing position of being called
a ‘liar’, Justice Balakrishnan laughed it off.
This is what Justice
Balakrishnan had told TOI on December 8 : “I had asked for a report from Justice
Gokhale. Justice Reghupathy had also given a report to Justice Gokhale. In turn,
Justice Gokhale sent a report to me narrating how a lawyer had whipped out a
phone in his chamber saying a Union minister was on the line to talk to him. The
report mentioned that Justice Reghupathy did not take the call but it did not
identify who the minister was.”
Asked during the same
conversation why he did not take up the matter with the Prime Minister, the
National Human Rights Commission chief had said, “The report of Justice Gokhale
is still there in the files with the present Chief Justice of India (S. H.
Kapadia). He can initiate action even now on the basis of that
report.”
(Source:Extracts from a story
by Dhananjay Mahapara in
Times of India dated 15-12-2010)
(Comments:Whether the Ex-CJI
should continue as
Chairman of NHRC)
Ex-CM Vilasrao shielded MLA’s money lender family : SC
In a stinging criticism of
Maharashtra chief minister-turned Union cabinet minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, the
Supreme Court on Tuesday said he had abused his constitutional position to
prevent the police from registering a criminal case against a Congress MLA’s
money-lender father and slapped a Rs.10 lakh fine on the state government.
Deshmukh was accused of interfering with registration of complaints and
investigation of an illegal racket in the state’s Vidarbha region in which money
lenders were alleged to have been squeezing debtridden farmers dry, forcing them
to commit suicide.
Shocked by the ‘gross misuse
of power’, a Bench of Justices G. S. Singhvi and A. K. Ganguly said :
“Considering the entire matter in its proper perspective, this court is of the
view that the way interference was caused from the office of the CM by his
private secretary by two telephone calls on May 31, 2006, and the manner in
which the district collector was summoned by the CM on the very next day, June
1, 2006, for giving instructions to specially treat any complaint filed against
MLA Dilip Kumar Sananda and his family members has no precedent either in law or
in public administration.”
In a no-holds-barred
criticism of Deshmukh, the bench not only upheld the Bombay High Court order
directing filing of cases against the accused in the illegal money lending ring
but even enhanced the cost imposed on the state government from Rs.25,000 to
Rs.10 lakh.
A petition before the High
Court had alleged that though there were around 50 complaints against one family
related to Sananda for an illegal money-lending racket collecting interest up to
10% per month from poor farmers in Vidarbha, the police had refused to take
action owing to consistent interference and instructions from CM and his office.
The SC Bench said: “The message conveyed in this case is shocking and it shocks the conscience of this court about the manner in which the constitutional functionaries behaved in the state.” Ripping apart the politically dramatised pro-farmer face projected by the Cong-led coalition government, the SC said the complaint while seeking action against money lenders was categorical — farmers do not get the benefit of various packages announced by the government and the state machinery is ruthless with farmers.
It said the orders passed by Deshmukh asking the authorities to bestow special treatment to Sananda’s family members and protect them from the normal legal process came as a shock as close to two lakh farmers committed suicide in India between 1997 and 2008. “This is the largest sustained wave of suicides ever recorded in human history. Two-thirds of the two lakh suicides took place in five states of Ma harashtra, AP, Karnataka, MP and Chhattisgarh. Even though Maharashtra is one of the richest states in the country and in its capital Mumbai 25,000 of India’s one lakh millionaires reside, the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, in which is situated Budhana, is today the worst place in the whole country for farmers,” it said.
The Bench said: “This being the grand reality, as the CM of the state and as holding a position of great responsibility as a high constitutional functionary, Vilasrao Deshmukh certainly acted beyond all legal norms by giving direction to the Collector to protect members of a particular family who are dealing in money-lending business from the normal process of law.”
”This amounts to bestowing special favour to some chosen few at the cost of the vast number of poor people who as farmers have taken loans and who have come to the authorities of law and order to register their complaints against torture and atrocities by the money lenders. The instructions of the CM will certainly impede their access to legal redress and bring about a failure of the due process,” the judges said. The state represented by counsel Uday Lalit and Sanjay Kharde argued that it had already filed about 25 cases against Sananda under the Indian Penal Code and the Money Lending Act of 1946 and counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi for Deshmukh said the then CM only asked to verify the genuineness of the complaints through a committee and did not ask them to be stayed.
Whistleblower cop had no posting for eight months
It was assistant police inspector Ganesh Aney’s firm refusal to bow to ‘indecent proposals’ by the state’s highest political office that resulted in the indictment of former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh by the Supreme Court.
In defiance of Deshmukh’s ‘illegal verbal instructions’ to ignore complaints by farmers against the practices indulged in by Congress MLA Dilip Sananda’s father Gokulchand Sananda, Aney had recorded the exact orders from the CM’s office in their police diary.
“It was on May 31, 2006, that an FIR was filed against Sananda for kidnapping, extortion and illegal money-lending on a complaint of a farmer, Rajendra Kavadkar. At around 1.15 p.m., Ajinkya Padwal, private secretary to the CM, called up the police station and enquired about the case. I told him that an FIR had been registered at 12.15 p.m. Ten minutes later, Padwal called again and said the CM has instructed that no further cases be registered against Sananda,’’ Aney said.
Determined to book the guilty, Aney along with his superior officer Chandrakant Sugandi recorded Pad-wal’s conversation in the police diary. It is learnt that the very next day, Aney was summoned at Varsha (CM’s residence), where Deshmukh enquired about his tenure and was alleged to have expressed his displeasure about the police action against Sananda, who was the Congress’s lone MLA in Buldhana district.
“A week after the FIR, I was transferred to the police training school in Akola. I went on medical leave. On June 5, 2006, the district collector issued orders that any case against the Sananda family should be first reported to the district-level committee and only after legal scrutiny of the allegations should a case be registered,’’ Aney said. The police officer was denied any posting for nearly eight months after he reported back from his medical leave. The is-sue was sorted out after Aney’s wrote to the deputy CM, stating that she would immolate herself in front of CM’s residence.
At present, Aney is posted at Kotwali police station at Amravati, while his then superior, Sugandi, is posted as vigilance officer, caste verification, Nandurbar.
(Source : The Times of India, dated 15-12-2010)
