New Delhi, February 23
Expressing its resolve to cleanse judiciary of corruption allegedly exposed in a sting operation by a TV scribe in the warrant-for-cash scam in which a Gujarat Magistrate was accused of issuing warrants to the President, the Chief Justice of India and two other jurists for Rs 40,000, the Supreme Court said today that the CBI report on the incident was “an eye-opener”.
“The incident is an eye-opener. It does not mean that such things are happening only in Gujarat. It is happening all over India,” a Bench of Chief Justice Mr V.N. Khare and Mr Justice S.H. Kapadia observed after perusing the CBI’s second status report on the progress of investigation in the case ordered by the court earlier.
Taking a serious view of the judiciary being found involved in such alleged corrupt practices, Chief Justice Khare said he would shortly be convening an emergency meeting of all high court Chief Justices to discuss the issue.
Though Chief Justice Khare by his anguished observation that “we have to break this nexus (of misusing judicial process)... and we must break it”, made it clear that the apex court was determined to clean the system, he at the same time said he found himself handicapped of not having adequate powers to deal with such a situation.
Stating that the Chief Justice of India has very little administrative powers to handle the situation arising out of such incidents, Chief Justice Khare in a reminder to the Executive said the Chief Justice required some more powers to correct the rot in the judicial system.
“What power does the Chief Justice have to deal with or control such a situation?” he asked, revealing that he had to face a great “difficulty” earlier in obtaining the resignations of two high court judges, who were accused of corruption.
The CJI’s reference was apparently to the procedure of removing a high court judge if found guilty of judicial misconduct as he could only be removed through impeachment motion passed by Parliament.
The CBI ordered to probe the allegations against Ahmedabad’s Meghani Nagar Metropolitan Magistrate M.S. Brahmbhatt of issuing warrants against President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the Chief Justice himself, sitting Supreme Court Judge B.P. Singh and senior advocate R.K. Jain, allegedly for a bribe of Rs 40,000 without even examining the papers properly, was allowed two weeks further time to expedite the investigation and file a fresh report.
