Joining issue with justice H.L. Gokhale, the former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan on Wednesday said no action could have been taken against the former Telecom Minister based on the report of the then Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, as he did not mention Mr. A. Raja's name in the matter of alleged attempt to influence Justice R. Regupathi in a criminal case.
Reacting to Justice Gokhale's statement, Justice Balakrishnan said: “There was no question of [my] suppressing the report of the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court. I have not said that the judge [Justice Gokhale] had sent an incorrect or false report to me regarding the alleged incident or suppressed any facts. I only stated that in the report given to me, no mention was made of any Minister having spoken to the judge [Justice Regupathi] of the Madras High Court. In the report also, no name of any Minister was mentioned.”
Justice Balakrishnan said: “I maintain that I did not receive any letter from Justice Regupathi addressed to me, and it is not the practice also to have correspondence with the judges, but always seek report from the Chief Justice of the High Court concerned, in case any issue brought to the notice of the CJI warrants so, which I did in this case. In matters of this nature, the Chief Justice of India can only go by the conclusive report of the Chief Justice of the High Court concerned, and that alone could be relied and acted upon. And in this issue, as per the report of the Chief Justice Madras High Court, there was no cogent ground made out for a case against any Union Minister.”
The former CJI reiterated that in any case if the judge concerned felt that anybody, be it a Union Minister, tried to influence his judicial function, he could have proceeded against him, without seeking any direction from the CJI or the Chief Justice of High Court, under the Contempt of Courts Act.
“In fact, the case on a writ petition against the advocate concerned [R.K. Chandramohan] in the Madras High Court is based on that ground only, which resulted in his suspension from the Bar Council of Madras and Pondicherry and the matter is still sub judice. All these matters were brought to the notice of the Union Law Minister on August 18, 2009, in response to his letter to me drawing reference to the memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister by MPs of different political parties.”
The former CJI said: “In the wake of reporting in some sections of media recently, it appears that an attempt is being made to create a wedge between the high institutions of judiciary and attach motives over the allegations of a Union Minister having spoken to a judge to influence his judicial function, which is unfortunate. I am issuing this statement only with the hope that the facts will not be twisted and henceforth no motives will be attached to the judiciary.”
“I have seen the press release by Justice Gokhale. From the media reports, subsequent to the press release by Justice Gokhale, it appears that I suppressed certain facts to save somebody. I never wanted to publish any confidential letter received by me in my capacity as Chief Justice of India. But as the contents of the letter by the Chief Justice of India to the Chief Justice of Madras High Court, and also the letters written by the Chief Justice of Madras High Court to CJI have already been made public through that press release, with much reluctance I am constrained to quote from my personal file, the full text of the report dated 8th August, 2009, given by the then Chief Justice of Madras High Court to me so that the matter be clarified.”
