Chennai, December 18
The furore over former Union Minister A Raja's alleged attempt to influence the judiciary in a criminal case refused to die down with former judge Justice S Reghupathi again insisting today that he had named Raja in his letter to then Madras High Court Chief Justice H L Gokhale.

“It is always there in the order itself. You have seen that. It is there in the division bench order,” Justice Reghupathi, who was approached by a lawyer taking the name of Raja for securing bail to an accused in a criminal case, told reporters.

He was apparently referring to the letter appended by a Division Bench of the Madras High Court in its recent order while suspending advocate R K Chandramohan as Chairman of the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

Disposing of a petition by a lawyer, the Bench had appended a portion of a letter written by Reghupathi, who had reported that Chandramohan had entered his chamber last year and pleaded that the case of a father and a son, accused in a marks scandal case in Puducherry, for anticipatory bail be considered favourably as they were “family friends of a Union Minister by name Raja”.

Reghupathi, in his letter dated July 7, 2009, had said that he had discouraged such conduct of Chandramohan and the case would be disposed of in accordance with law if it was listed before him.

Facing criticism on the controversy, former Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan had insisted that the minister's name was not mentioned by Justice Gokhale in his report to him.

Sitting Supreme Court judge Gokhale had contradicted Balakrishnan's claim last week that his letter did not name Raja.

To a question, Justice Reghupathi said he was never scared or confused and added that he had never sought any security from anyone. — PTI