Justice Katju has questions for ex-Chief Justice Lahoti

Press Council of India chairman and former Supreme Court judge Justice Markandey Katju has sparked a fresh row over judicial corruption alleging that an additional judge of the Madras High Court was favoured by an acting chief justice for his elevation while several Chief Justices of India also allowed him to continue despite probes against him establishing the graft charges. He said the corruption was allowed because the Manmohan Singh government was forced to do so by its Tamil Nadu ally, though he did not name DMK.

In the latest blog titled "Some questions for Justice Lahoti", he wrote: "Justice Lahoti, the former Chief Justice of India, when contacted by some media people about my statement which was published on my blog and in Times of India yesterday, generally remarked that he has never done anything wrong in his life. He has not gone into any specifics, so let me put him some specific questions."

His blog read:

1. Is it , or is it not, correct that I first wrote him a letter from Chennai, stating that there were serious allegations of corruption about an Additional Judge of Madras High Court, and therefore he ( Justice Lahoti ) should get a secret intelligence enquiry held against that Additional Judge,and thereafter I personally met Justice Lahoti at Delhi and again requested for a secret IB enquiry against the Additional Judge about whom I had received several complaints, and from several sources, that he was indulging in corruption ?

2. Is it, or is it not, correct that on my request Justice Lahoti ordered a secret IB enquiry against that Judge ?

3. Is it, or is it not correct, that a few weeks after I personally met him in Delhi and then returned to Chennai, he telephoned me from Delhi ( while I was at Chennai ) and told me that the IB, after thorough enquiry, gave a report that indeed the Judge was indulging in corruption ?

4. Is it , or is it not, correct that after receiving the adverse IB report against the Additional Judge, Justice Lahoti, who was then Chief Justice of India, called a meeting of the 3 Judge Supreme Court Collegium, consisting of himself, Justice Sabarwal, and Justice Ruma Pal, and the 3 Judge Collegium, having perused the IB report recommended to the Government of India not to extend the 2 year term of that Additional Judge ?

5. Is it , or is it not, correct that after that recommendation of the 3 Judge Collegium of the Supreme Court was sent to the Government of India, he ( Justice Lahoti ), on his own, without consulting his 2 other Supreme Court Collegium colleagues, wrote a letter to the Government of India asking the Government to give another 1 year term as Additional Judge to the concerned Judge ?

6. If indeed the IB reported, after an enquiry, that the Judge was indulging in corruption, why did he ( Justice Lahoti ) recommend to the Government of India to give that corrupt Judge another term of 1 year as Additional Judge in the High Court ?

"Some people have commented about the timing of my statement. What happened was that some Tamilians had commented on Facebook that I am posting several matters on my Facebook post, so I should also post some of my experiences in Madras High Court. Then I started posting about my experiences there, and it was at time I remembered this experience too, and posted it," he wrote.

In his earlier blog titled "How a corrupt Judge continued in the Madras High Court" Justice Katju wrote: "There was an Additional Judge of the Madras High Court against whom there were several allegations of corruption. He had been directly appointed as a District Judge in Tamilnadu, and during his career as District Judge there were as many as 8 adverse entries against him recorded by various portfolio Judges of the Madras High Court. But one Acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court by a single stroke of his pen deleted all those 8 adverse entries, and consequently he became an Additional Judge of the High Court, and he was on that post when I came as Chief Justice of Madras High Court in November 2004."

He said the Judge had the solid support of a very important political leader of Tamil Nadu who was once granted bail by that judge. "I was told that this was because while a District Judge he granted bail to that political leader," wrote Katju.