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Tuesday, Jan 13, 2009
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Deve Gowda’s letter to the Chief Justice

This is the text of the letter of the Janata Dal (S) president H.D. Deve Gowda to the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court P.D. Dinakaran.

My Dear Daniel Dinakaran,

It is with an acute sense of duty as also with great pain and anguish that Janata Dal (Secular) was forced to bring out a book titled “Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project: A case study in Fraud and Collusion to Defeat the Ends of Justice”, a copy of which I am sending herewith for your kind perusal.

This book had to be published as the people of Karnataka and this country deserve to know the complete truth and to dispel the lies and distortions being spread by misinterpreting court judgements to create an impression in public mind that courts judgments have found nothing wrong even about the massive frauds that were not previously revealed to the courts.

As a former Prime Minister I am anguished to note a growing tendency to attack and criticise judiciary by levelling it as activist and to tar the judiciary by pointing to the few black sheep repeatedly, as perhaps our political class and bureaucrats cannot tolerate the public goodwill the courts at large and the High Courts and the Supreme Court especially enjoy.

The courts only do their Constitutionally ordained duty to dispense justice and protect citizens against arbitrary action or dereliction of the State.

In this endeavour, courts have to vitally depend on the bona fides of the counsels and law officers assisting the court which is taken for granted.

In case the law officers, bureaucrats and business collude to prevent the courts from doing justice by keeping vital documents withdrawn from it and obtain a judgement on the basis of selective documents and records presented to courts and then try to block and prevent further judicial scrutiny by invoking the judgement so obtained through fraud and suppression, they are making an assault on the Rule of Law itself and breaching the citizen’s and people’s last defence and hope for justice.

To give a little background, with the change in administration when JD (S) became a coalition partner and headed the Government in Karnataka, after the Hon’ble Supreme Court by applying principles of res judicata on the basis of the judgment delivered by Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka in September 1998, against which special leave petition was dismissed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in May 1999, had delivered the judgment in AIMO’s case (2006(4) SCC 683) on April 20, 2006, startling facts and files and files were discovered revealing that the most important documents, decisions, agreements and records material to the issues placed before the High Court of Karnataka and the Hon’ble Supreme Court for decision in the above case were kept suppressed, burying a massive fraud worth more than Rs. 30,000 crores and also making available an extra 2,189 acres of saleable land around Bangalore by fabricating records in favour of private contractor.

The State Government headed by JD(S), with rightly or wrongly imputations of malafides being there on record which could not be rebutted by me and my son who was the PWD Minister as we were never a party to the proceedings and always bowed our heads before the High Court and Supreme Court, was extremely cautious even after having discovered all the records and suppressions and acts of fabrication and collusion, placed everything before this Hon’ble court and did not take any precipitate action so as to be even remotely seen to have not complied with the directions of this Hon’ble court as confirmed by the Supreme Court in the above matter.

However, after the change in Government, first when the State was under President’s rule and later on when a new elected government was formed, the nexus at the bureaucratic, business and political level has been again making attempts at ensuring that the Karnataka High Court and the Hon’ble Supreme court is prevented from doing justice.

First, throwing to the winds the entire code of professional conduct and ethics, a counsel which consistently appeared in land acquisition matters in the very judgment delivered by Karnataka High Court and confirmed by Hon’ble Supreme Court in the AIMO’s case (supra), was appointed Advocate General and despite my personally writing that owing to the conflict of interest he cannot either appear or advise in the matter relating to BMIC project, he was made to appear before Hon’ble Supreme Court on 25th March 2008 in the petition seeking contempt of AIMO’s judgement, with his co-counsel continuing to appear for the private contractor.

With no whisper of opposition from the earlier counsel in the same case of the private contractor appearing as Advocate General before Hon’ble Supreme Court, not pointing out that entire documentation regarding suppression, collusion and fraud which resulted in AIMO’s judgement, has been placed on record of Hon’ble Supreme Court, allowed his earlier co-counsel to make all misleading submissions, unrebutted by him for obvious reasons, culminating in notices being issued by this Hon’ble Supreme Court in contempt petition filed by private contractor.

The same Advocate General within two days advised the State Government to comply with the demands made by his former clients in specific view of the contempt notices issued by this Hon’ble court.

It is this very advice which has been misused by the present Government to take decisions contrary to the record before this Hon’ble court filed by the previous administration, which has been made basis to take decisions that render all the causes pending before Hon’ble Supreme Court infructuous in which the material regarding fraud and collusion has been filed, and the stand is taken in cases before this court without disclosing that the State has alleged fraud and suppression before Supreme court and projecting falsely before this High Court that all actions are pursuant to and in line with the Supreme Court judgment.

Not only this, all this has been misused in public domain through media to paint my character in black in opposing the private contractor and talking about its frauds and misdeeds through the media by citing the fair name of Hon’ble Supreme Court and the judgment pronounced by Karnataka High Court on the basis of material placed before it, as in its bona fides acts of rendering justice the courts have to rely on the bona fides of the counsels appearing before it, more so senior counsels and the law officers.

What has emerged in this case study goes far beyond the present case in hand and the nation as such along with this High Court and Supreme Court has to stand guard against such a nexus of businesses, bureaucrats, law officers and counsels seeking to undermine the institution of justice itself by so blatantly indulging in acts of collusion and suppression even before the highest courts of the land. The book is well documented and is aimed at generating an informed and healthy public debate, and besides being circulated to your lordships, is being made available to the Members of Parliament and the Legislatures particularly in the State of Karnataka.

I am further prompted to address this letter, that after maligning me and my family, this very private contractor and his self-same counsels party to the collusion, have now started making allegations on record even against the Karnataka High Court and the lordships manning the said High Court of scuttling the BMIC project when they have attempted to even look into the acts of collusion and fraud in validly instituted cause before them and a bench headed by the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India was pleased to dismiss a Special Leave Petition containing such averments preferred by the company on 19.12.2008.

This kind of unprecedented assault made on the institution of justice, to subvert its decisions through active collusion and fraud, has potential of undermining the very fair name of Indian judiciary, which has always acted and continues to act as vanguard of fundamental rights, custodian and sentinel of the Constitutional values and the rule of law whose reach power and determination to stamp out injustice is unparalleled and unique in the world making it the most trusted institution not only in India but the whole world.

With kind regards,

Yours,

H.D. Deve Gowda

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