Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Mar 30: Justice J Chelameswar of the Supreme Court, who had headed a press conference and had prepared for friction with the Chief Justice of India in the recentpast, is in the news again. Justice Chelameswar, senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, has alleged interference of the executive in the domain of judiciary.

In the said letter addressed to the Chief Justice of India, copies of which were sent to all the 22 judges of the Supreme Court, Justice Chelameswar has picked a particular case from Karnataka as pointer to undesired interference by the executive in judicial matters. He has asked the Chief Justice to convene a meeting of all the judges of the Supreme Court to discuss this serious matter.

In the letter dated March 21, he has warned that the increasing bonhomie between the executive and the judiciary can sound death-knell to democracy. This development is being described as unparralled in the history of judiciary and therefore, kicked up curiosity about things to follow.

The judge has questioned the propriety of the inquiry ordered by Karnataka high court Chief Justice, Dinesh Maheshwari, against district and sessions judge, Krishna Bhat. He has recalled that the collegium of the judiciary had given Bhat clean chit in a case in the past and recommeded for his promotion. He has pointed out that in spite of this, under instructions from the law and justice department , the Chief Justice ordered an inquiry against the said judge. Justice Chelameswar has argued that this is tantamount to the judiciary kneeling before the executive.

Justice Chelameswar feels that the central government, which can only hold discussions with the Supreme Court in judicial matters, has bypassed it and dealt directly with the high court. He says he does not know of any incident in which the Supreme Court was bypassed in this manner. He also has said that he does not know of any incident in which the charges were proved to be false and the judges had rejected the charge, and such cases were ordered to be re-investigated.

"To my mind, I could recollect no instance from the past, of the executive bypassing the Supreme Court, more particularly while its recommendations are pending, to look into the allegations already falsified and conclusively rejected by us. Asking the high court to re-evaluate our recommendation in this matter has to be deemed improper and contumacious," he said.

He also said that someone from Bengaluru has beaten the others on the way to the bottom, and charged the chief justice of Karnataka High Court of showing more interest in doing the work of the executive. He also said that effort to treat the Chief Justices as the heads of departments has been going on since long.

"Someone from Bangalore has already beaten us in the race to the bottom. The Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court is more than willing to do the Executive bidding, behind our back," Justice Chelameswar wrote in his six-page letter.

Raising the issue of judicial independence, he said, "We, the judges of the Supreme Court of India, are being accused of ceding our independence and our institutional integrity to the Executive's incremental encroachment.

"The executive is always impatient, and brooks no disobedience even of the judiciary if it can. Attempts were always made to treat the Chief Justices as the Departmental Heads in the Secretariat. So much for our 'independence and preeminence' as a distinct State organ.

"For some time, our unhappy experience has been that the government's accepting our recommendations is an exception and sitting on them is the norm. 'Inconvenient' but able judges or judges-to-be are being bypassed through this route," he claimed.

A subordinate woman judicial officer had levelled charges against district and sessions judge, Krishna Bhat, in 2016. The then Chief Justice of India, T S Thakur, had instructed the chief justice of Karrnataka High Court to probe the complaint. After the inquiry, the judge was given clean chit. Recently, Chief Justice of Karnataka high court, Dinesh Maheshwari, had ordered another probe under the instructions of the union government.