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Comment by Yogesh Saxena on September 17, 2010 at 8:26am

Eight chief justices of India were corrupt Ex law minister
NEW DELHI: Former law minister Shanti Bhushan on Thursday created a sensation in the Supreme Court when he moved an application accusing eight former Chief Justices of India of "corruption", and dared the court to send him to jail for committing "contempt of court".

The eight allegedly corrupt CJIs feature among a list of 16 prepared by Bhushan—comprising Justices Ranganath Mishra, K N Singh, M H Kania, L M Sharma, M N Venkatachalliah, A M Ahmadi, J S Verma, M M Punchhi, A S Anand, S P Bharucha, B N Kirpal, G B Patnaik, Rajendra Babu, R C Lahoti, V N Khare and Y K Sabharwal. Terming eight among the list as "definitely corrupt", Bhushan put their names in a sealed cover and submitted it to the Supreme Court and virtually dared it to open it and read out the contents.

He said of the 16 on his list, "six were definitely honest and about the remaining two, a definite opinion cannot be expressed whether they were honest or corrupt".

The veteran lawyer, who became famous by successfully arguing for setting aside the election of Indira Gandhi in 1975, triggering a chain of events leading to imposition of Emergency, resorted to the dramatic action in solidarity with his son, lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who is facing contempt charges for accusing current CJI S H Kapadia and his predecessors of misconduct.

"Make me a party along with Prashant Bhushan," requested Bhushan Sr, who was law minister in the post-Emergency Morarji Desai cabinet, as he challenged the SC to send him to jail for contempt.

Bhushan's challenge to the SC can put the apex court in a bind. It may be constrained not to ignore the provocation lest it start a trend. The option of punishing the Bhushans, however, carries the risk of putting the father-son duo on a pedestal, and training the spotlight on their allegations when the issue of judicial corruption finds ready resonance with an expanding constituency. Of all the protests against alleged judicial corruption, the Bhushans's is easily the most breathtaking, and will play well with the gallery.

Bhushan sought to raise for judiciary the cost of any punishment to him, by saying that he was ready to face the consequences. "The applicant will consider it a great honour to spend time in jail for making an effort to get for the people of India an honest and clean judiciary," he said.

In his application, the former law minister spoke of both the growing corruption in judiciary as well as the tendency to sweep it under the carpet in the name of protecting judiciary's reputation.

A defiant Bhushan claimed that two former CJIs were among the sources of his information on corruption among their peers. "In fact, two former CJIs had personally told the applicant while they were in office that their immediate predecessor and immediate successor were corrupt judges. The names of these four CJIs are included in the list of corrupt CJIs," Bhushan said.

"Unless the level of corruption in the judiciary is exposed and brought in the public domain, the institutions of governance cannot be activated to take effective measures to eliminate the evil," he added.

"It is a common perception that whenever such efforts are made by anyone, the judiciary tries to target him by the use of the power to contempt. It is the reputation of the judge which is his shield against any malicious and false allegations against him. He does not need the power of contempt to protect his reputation and credibility," Bhushan further said.

Proceedings against Prashant were initiated on a petition filed by amicus curiae Harish Salve accusing the former of making contemptuous remarks against CJI S H Kapadia and former CJIs. Besides, Bhushan Jr had also told a web newspaper that half of the last 16 former CJIs were corrupt.

His father, Shanti Bhushan said, "Since the applicant (Shanti Bhushan) is publicly stating that out of the last 16 CJIs, eight of them were definitely corrupt, he also needs to be added as a respondent to this contempt petition so that he is also suitably punished for this contempt."

Corruption in judiciary had taken firm root in the last two to three decades, Bhushan said while deploring persistent attempts to cover up in the belief that such charges might tarnish the image of the judiciary.

Assailing the Supreme Court's decision in 1991 in the Justice Veeraswamy case restraining probe agencies from registering FIR against any judge without the permission of the CJI, Bhushan said this had resulted in total immunity to corrupt judges and caused judicial corruption to increase by leaps and bounds."

I do not know about others but Ex-CJI, Y.K. Sabharwal was definitely corrupt. Articles had been
appearing in Mid Day daily alleging corruption by former Chief Justice of India, Mr. Y.K.
Sabharwal in the Sealing of Commercial shops in residential areas case.

The Delhi High Court taking Suo Motto cognizance of the matter, on 21.9.07 sentenced three journalists and a publisher to four months imprisonment for carrying the allegations against the former Chief Justice of India, Mr. Y.K. Sabharwal. This was certainly a case of Judicial overreach on the part of the Delhi High Court

Barkha Dutt, a senior journalist had stated in an article that the charges against the retired judge were grave and complex. Essentially, he had been accused on two counts. The first allegation was that his verdict on shutting down lakhs of commercial establishments in Delhi benefited his sons, who had business partnerships with mall-owners — presumably
the next logical destination for all those whose shops had been closed. Several lawyers and jurists say Justice Sabharwal shouldn't’t have sat in on this case because of the obvious conflict of interest. Instead, they claimed that he specifically assigned it to his court.

Those campaigning against him pointed out that his sons had used the judge’s official residence as their business address. Justice Sabharwal says this ‘clerical error’ was rectified as soon it came to his notice.

The second allegation related to land allotted to his sons by the then Mulayam Singh government in Uttar Pradesh. His detractors claim that four plots were sanctioned to the judge’s sons by the state government at prices considerably lower than the market rate,
while he was handling a case on whether or not Amar Singh’s private telephone conversations could be broadcast. The judge had ruled against the publication or airing of the CDs, propelling criticism that once again, a quid pro quo could not be ruled out.

Regarding the first allegation relating to sealing case, I had sent the following e-mail to the Supreme Court:

"Respected Sirs,

Although I am no advocate of the traders’ stir against sealing of shops in residential areas yet
I want to draw attention to the role of the agitating traders vis-à-vis the role of unscrupulous
politicians,incompetent planners and corrupt engineers charged with execution of the planning and development of Delhi. The Supreme Court had given orders for sealing of shops in residential areas with a view to decongesting the city of Delhi but may I point out that even if all the shops in the residential areas are sealed, Delhi will never be decongested. The first
reason is that there are so many unauthorized colonies, built by greedy colonizers which have been regularized later by vote hungry politicians, which have no facility for parking of cars or even for the movement of traffic smoothly. One has only to look at some of these colonies to get a true picture. Where were the planners of the city and the people charged
with execution of these plans when these unauthorized colonies having no facility for the
smooth movement of traffic, were built. Has any action been taken against the colonizers, politicians, planners and executive engineers who allowed this mess to be created? What the Honorable Supreme Court has to say in this regard?

Secondly, even in the colonies built by the DDA, parking space has not been provided in the majority of the areas. I live in a colony built by DDA but there is no parking space before our homes and cars are parked in such a manner that the traffic does not flow smoothly. Why action is not being taken against DDA planners and engineers?

Thirdly, there is the problem of stray cattle, mostly cows and bulls. These cattle never let the
traffic flow smoothly. Why is Supreme Court not ordering action against the MCD for creating this mess and not building ample space for lodging of the cattle?

Fourthly, the DDA who was charged with the urban development planning of the city failed to build adequate commercial centres in the city. The shops built by them were inadequate and also too small to cater to the needs of the traders. What action has been taken against the Planning Development department of the DDA?

Finally, I would submit that the bread and butter of the traders is being snatched away and they are being made the scapegoat while in view of the position stated above, there will be no decongestion of Delhi even if the Supreme Court’s orders are implemented in toto. In such a helpless situation, traders and their families would naturally take to streets."

THE SUPREME COURT DID NOT TAKE ANY COGNIZANCE OF MY E-MAIL and ORDERED THE SEALING OF COMMERCIAL SHOPS IN RESIDENTIAL AREAS.

If it is true that Mr. Sabharwal's sons had business partnership with the Mall owners during the hearing of the sealing case then the very fact that Mr. Sabharwal sat on the bench which decided the sealing case, is adequate to frame a charge of nepotism and favouritism
against him. Further, he decided in favour of sealing of commercial shops in residential areas which certainly benefited the mall owners as people had no other option in view of the sealing of shops but to go to malls for purchasing goods. What a callous man, Mr. Sabharwal was. He did not care for the thousands of shop owners who were rendered without any means of
making their both ends meet with the sealing of their shops nor did he care for the thousands of daily labourers who lost their jobs due to the sealing of the shops as they were working for these shop owners in taking the goods purchased by the customers from the shops to the customers house. The fact that some people were killed in the protests against the sealing
of shops and the fact that no action was taken against politicians, engineers, planners and other Govt. officers including police officers who were responsible for coming up of such commercial shops in residential areas, show that Mr. Sabharwal was indeed not interested in looking at all aspects of the sealing case but just wanted the sealing to go ahead
so that his sons could make money. So, he had taken the help of Judicial Activism to see to it that his sons profitted from it. What a cruel man he is?!

The second allegation can also be proved easily if it is true that the State Government of UP under Mulayam Singh's rule had sanctioned four plots to Mr. Sabharwal's sons at lower rates than the market rates and he heard the case regarding Amar Singh who was a sort of shadow man for Mulayam Singh as well as decided in favour of Mr. Amar Singh.

As a man who called for zero tolerance for corruption during his tenure as Chief Justice of India, it is in the interest of Mr. Sabharwal himself to clear himself of these charges and in case the charges are proved, he must be punished for turning Judicial Activism into Judicial overreach.

You see, the evil has to be nipped in the bud otherwise it would become monstrous. Now, neither I nor the Courts were born yesterday. I knew and Court knew that shops were coming up in residential areas. The Court also knew that Police Officers, local politicians, MCD and DDA engineers take money from the traders to allow them to open shops in the residential
areas. So, you i.e. the Supreme Court could have acted at the very start of this illegal process and taken Suo Motto cognizance of this occurence and nipped the evil in the bud. Same is the case with planning. The Courts knew that the Planners were not doing their job and not providing for parking lots. That too could have been nipped in the bud by the Courts. As for
corruption in the Judiciary, both of us are mature people. We know what happens in the Tis Hazari and other Courts where bribes are taken right under the nose of the Judges. So, Judiciary is not without corruption. In fact, there is a need for Judicial reform urgently. Either the graduates with a degree of Law may be made an electorate for electing Judges with proper qualifications for a period of two years as is
being done in USA. That would make the Judges also face the scrutiny of the people. What do you have to
say to that?

In fact, you i.e. the Supreme Court may kindly ask the Government that the CBI should be assigned the task of investigating into the allegations of corruption against Mr. Sabharwal. That would save the Higher
Judiciary from its name being tarnished. You are requested to do this as quickly as possible.

Comment by Sambhunath Tiadi on September 7, 2010 at 5:09pm

Diplomacy and politics have already grasped the judiciary,executive and legislative.Even our hon'ble president of India has also declared that she will be the political president to the congress party. So, what can we do now? Time will be the great factor to find out the solutions.