New Delhi, April 27
The Supreme Court today quashed bailable warrants issued by a Ahmedabad magistrate against President Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Chief Justice of India, Mr Justice V. N. Khare and two other jurists on a false complaint for alleged bribe of Rs 40,000, saying it was a judicial order and needed to be set aside by the judicial pronouncement.
The misuse of judicial process to frame a person was exposed in a sting operation by a TV reporter earlier this year when he had obtained bailable warrants against the President, the CJI, sitting Supreme Court Judge, Mr Justice B. P. Singh and senior advocate R. K. Jain through some lawyers from magistrate M.S. Brahm Bhatt’s court for the payment of Rs 40,000 on the basis of a fictitious complaint.
Quashing the warrants, a Bench directed the CBI to further probe the “magnitude” of such illegal operation in Gujarat.
The CBI was directed to submit a report within 10 weeks that whether it had come across any other incident of misuse of judicial process to frame innocent persons in the state.
The sting operation was carried out by the TV scribe after complaints of large scale corruption in lower-level judiciary in Gujarat, especially in cases of commercial transactions.
The court said the criminal proceedings initiated by the CBI against the Magistrate and four others persons, including three lawyers, would be proceeded by the trial court
separately. The CBI counsel told the Bench that the chargesheet in the case would be filed soon.
The Bench also directed the Gujarat High Court to submit periodic reports about the progress it had made in monitoring the functioning of lower courts in the state to ensure that such cases are not repeated in future.
The high court would conduct periodic inspections of the lower judiciary and would take necessary steps to improve its functioning, the apex court said.
