The controversy over former communications minister A. Raja’s alleged attempt to influence a Madras high court judge in the case of his two relatives’ bail on Wednesday became murkier with former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan stating that he had not “suppressed” anything on the issue and there was no reason to act against the former minister.
Contradicting Wednesday’s statement of the then Madras HC Chief Justice H.L. Gokhale, now a Supreme Court Judge, that he had brought the name of Mr Raja to the notice of the then CJI, Justice Balakrishnan, the latter issued a fresh statement stating that Mr Raja’s name was not there in Justice Gokhale’s report. He further said that the entire matter was in fact brought to the notice of the law minister.
This was Justice Balakrishnan’s second press statement in the row on the controversy since December 8.
Justice Balakrishnan, now the chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission said the matter was brought to the notice of the law minister in response to his letter referring about a memorandum by some MPs to the Prime Minister on the issue. The MPs had sought action against Mr Raja for his alleged attempt to “influence” Madras high court Judge R. Reghupathy (now retired) on June 12, 2009 in the case of the bail of his two relatives.
“All these matters were brought to the notice of law minister on August 18, 2009 in response to his letter to me drawing reference to the memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister by the MPs of different political parties. There was no question of suppressing the report of the Chief Justice of Madras HC.”
Justice Balakrishnan in his statement produced the entire text of Justice Gokhale’s report to prove his point that it did not mention the name of Mr Raja anywhere. “I am certain that in the report received from Chief Justice of Madras HC (Justice Gokhale), no name of the Union Minister was mentioned, and that there was no case that any minister himself made telephonic talk with the judge (Reghupathy) or threatened or infl-uenced him. Hence, no act-ion could have been taken based on that report,” Justice Balakrishnan asserted.
Justice Gokhale in his press statement yesterday had said that he had enclosed the letter of Justice Reghupathy with his letter of July 5, 2009 reporting the matter to the then CJI Justice Balakrishnan and had enclosed with it letter of Justice Reghupathy written to him (Justice Gokhale) on July 2, 2009, which clearly mentioned the name of Mr Raja. However, Justice Balakrishnan’s statement said “I maintain that I did not receive any letter from Justice Reghupathy addressed to me, and it is not the practice also to have correspondence with the judges, but always seek report from the concerned Chief Justice of the high court, in case any issue brought to the notice of the CJI warrants so, which I did in this case.”
Several senior SC advocates of saw issuing of press statements by judges contradicting each other on an issue as a “strange” development in the history of the judiciary. They said that they did not remember that anything like this had happened in the past.