Supreme Court Justice H.L. Gokhale, a former chief justice of the Madras high court, on Tuesday virtually put former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan in the dock over former communications minister A. Raja’s alleged attempt to influence a high court judge in a bail case involving two of his relatives in 2009.
Justice Gokhale, in a formal statement which is rarely issued by a judge, said he had brought the entire matter to the notice of the then Chief Justice of India, K.G. Balakrishnan, in a communication sent on July 5, 2009 and that Mr Raja’s name was clearly mentioned in his letter. This also included the letter of former high court judge R. Reghupathy, whom Mr Raja had tried to influence.
Justice Gokhale issued a press release after the former CJI, now chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission, told the media on December 8 that he had not got any letter form Justice Reghupathy and that Justice Gokhale had not mentioned Mr Raja’s name in his report.
“The reported statement of the former CJI 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 CJI’s office. Therefore, I am releasing this press note,” Justice Gokhale said.
“With respect to the first statement of the (former) CJI that he did not receive any letter from Justice Reghupathy, I may point out that I had forwarded to the former CJI a copy of Justice Reghupathy’s letter of July 2, 2009 by my letter dated July 5, 2009. The former CJI had in fact acknowledged the same in his subsequent letter of August 8, 2009,” the press note said.
Not only this, Justice Gokhale further said the former CJI had even informed him he had received a copy of a memorandum concerning the incident addressed by a large number of MPs sent to the Prime Minister. “A copy thereof was enclosed to seek my views/comments on the issue raised therein,” Justice Gokhale said.
On Justice Balakrishnan’s statement that “in my letter I did not name any Union minister having talked to Justice Reghupathy over the phone to influence him,” Justice Gokhale said: “I may point out that Justice Reghupathy’s letter was already with him (Justice Balakrishnan), and in second para thereof Justice Reghupathy had specifically mentioned the name of Minister Raja.”
However, Justice Balakrishnan stuck to his stand that Justice Reghupathy had not written any letter directly to him but it was a letter written by him to the high court chief justice (H.L. Gokhale) which was enclosed in the communication. “How can I reveal the contents of that letter?” the former CJI asked reporters.
In response to a question about his December 8 statement, Justice Balakrishnan said: “You must understand I had said that Justice Reghupathy has not written to me as Chief Justice of India. I was only saying it is not a letter written to me. Justice Gokhale is a good judge. He has sent a correct report,” the former CJI said.
The whole controversy came to the fore after the Madras high court had last week suspended senior advocate K. Chandramohan as president of the Tamil Nadu Bar Council for acting as a middleman on behalf of Mr Raja to “influence” Justice Reghupathy in the bail case of two of his relatives on June 12, 2009. The high court judge, who retired this year, had refused to talk to the former minister on the phone and later made a statement to this effect in open court.