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More judges may be sucked into
scandal after new revelations
WSN Bureau
 AT a time when
India’s top judges
are quibbling over whether the public has the right to know how much
wealth do they have, another scam continues to drag down the
judiciary’s reputation.
After the Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan issued a
notice to Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Nirmal Yadav, the
alleged recipient of Rs 15 lakh of cash which was initially wrongly
delivered at another judge’s house, further revelations threaten to
pull more judges into the cash spill.
Now, the judge towards whom the needle of suspicion was being
pointed, has disclosed that there were other judges present at the
house of her near namesake, Justice Nirmaljit Kaur. She has said
that their presence and the contacts between the son of a judge and
the cash-giver should have falled within the ambit of the probe. It
seems that a sitting Supreme Court judge and a high court judge were
present at the house of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur when the cash was
delivered at her place. She called the police and it was later
revealed that the cash was meant for another judge, Nirmal Yadav.
The case was handed over to the CBI and work was withdrawn from
Justice Yadav.
Now, Advocate Anupam Gupta, who was appointed as special
public prosecutor in the case by the Chandigarh Administration, has
demanded that the ambit of the probe should be expanded to inquire
into the role of all the judges allegedly linked to the scam.
Gupta had given a comprehensive presentation before the
three-judge inhouse committee, appointed by the Chief Justice of
India (CJI) to probe the scam. The committee has indicted Justice
Nirmal Yadav but there has been no further probe into the nexus
between lawyers, judges and businessmen. Gupta has said that this
role too needed to be probed and full facts should come out.
Now, new revelations have claimed that a senior judge of the
high court had attempted to influence the preliminary inquiry by the
Chandigarh
police, and both this judge and a Supreme Court judge were present
at Justice Nirmaljit Kaur’s residence on 13th August when the cash
was delivered.
The evidence in the form of phone call details may prove to
be damning. The high court judge was in continuous contact with the
accused who had sent the money throughout the three days of
preliminary inquiry by the police.
In her letter to the CJI, a defiant Justice Nirmal Yadav
questioned the findings of the inhouse committee. “The committee
records that a judge of the Supreme Court and a senior judge of the
high court may have been present in the house (at the time of
delivery of the cash),” Justice Yadav said in her letter demanding
evidence against her.
14 January 2009
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