By IANS,
New Delhi: Supreme Court judge H.L. Gokhale Tuesday took on former chief justice K.G. Balakrishnan after the latter claimed he did not know about an alleged bid by former minister A. Raja to influence Justice R. Raghupati of the Madras High Court into giving bail to two friends.
Justice Gokhale was the chief justice of the Madras High Court when the alleged incident took place last year.
In a statement released by the apex court registry, Justice Gokhale contested Justice Balakrishnan’s claim that he did not get any letter from Justice Raghupati about the telephonic call from Raja, a DMK leader who was then a minister in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government.
Justice Gokhale said he had annexed Justice Raghupati’s letter of July 2, 2009 with his own letter of July 7, 2009. This was just two months after Manmohan Singh began his second term with Raja again holding the post of telecommunication.
Raghupati had earlier claimed that advocate K. Chandramohan tried to influence him to issue a bail order by telling him that the two applicants were family friends of Raja.
Chandramohan even tried to make Justice Raghupati speak to Raja on his mobile phone. The judge declined to take the call.
On Dec 7, the Madras High Court suspended Chandramohan from functioning as president of the Bar Council of Madras.
Judge Balakrishnan had earlier said he was not told about the incident by Justice Raghupati and there was no mention of Raja’s name in the report Justice Gokhale sent him.
The former chief justice said that in the absence of specific information, there was no occasion for him to recommend “any further action” against Raja.
Justice Gokhale said the statement of the Justice Balakrishnan “gives an erroneous impression about my role in the matter.
“Hence, it became necessary for me to verify the facts from the record with the chief justice of India’s office. Therefore, I am releasing this press note.”
In Ahmedabad, Justice Balakrishnan, who is chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, insisted Tuesday that no letter had been written to him regarding any minister trying to contact a judge.
He said a letter was written by a judge to the chief justice of the Madras High Court. “How can I reveal the contents of a letter not written to me?”
“Mr Gokhale is a good judge but there was no mention of any such incident in his communication,” he added.
The judicial controversy came out in the open after Raja quit as central minister following allegations that he sold second generation airwaves at below the market rate, causing huge losses to the national exechequer.