pls इसे जरुर पढ़े यह तहलका न्यूज़ ने वो confidential लैटर ढूंढी है ।जो हर आदमी को पढ़नी चाहिए ।और देखे जब जज ही मानते हैं क़ि सिस्टम corrupt हो गया है तो क्यों नही सुधारते ?? जजों की confidential letter...... 28 September 2014ArchivesCHANNELS Current Affairs Engaged Circle De-Classified Edit -Opinion Society & Lifestyle Features Bouquets & Bricks Business & Economy ArchivesPeople PowerWanted: Your story THE SOUL OF THE BUSINESSA PRIVATE FAITH MADE DANGEROUSLY PUBLIC The Making of a Paper By SHOMA CHAUDHURY In Gratitude By TARUN J TEJPAL TOP SECRET Confidential letter justice cries for Justice denied VN KhareFormer Chief Justice of India‘I have been on record speaking against corruption. All judges must be saintly once they take oath. I have never believed in transferring judges’At War: BK Roy (extreme right) and other judges of the Punjab and Haryana High CourtVikram Jit Singh scoops an internal communication from aggrieved Justice BK Roy to Chief Justice of India RC Lahoti imploring the country’s highest judicial authority to strike at those who give the judiciary a bad name, not at those who have tried to cleanse the filth‘I also put on record that during my discussions with then Hon’ble CJI Mr Justice VN Khare and Hon’ble Mr Justice Rajendra Babu, I was told that since I have not committed any wrong, where is the question of my transfer and if at all, the transfer has to be of the errant judges’Vikram Jit Singh scoops an internal communication from aggrieved Justice BK Roy to Chief Justice of India RC Lahoti imploring the country’s highest judicial authority to strike at those who give the judiciary a bad name, not at those who have tried to cleanse the filth•‘Am I now being punished for doing my duty by the Constitution, for holding court (along with another, but only one other judge of the high court) on April 19, even as all my other colleagues on the bench wilfully deserted the fortress of justice? Has the distinction between right and wrong, between duty and desertion, between truth and falsehood been completely blurred?’•‘The problem of nepotism — judges’ close relatives practising at the Bar… I passed an Administrative Order… giving effect to a remedy for the malaise… Aimed at preventing the emergence of … a mutual cooperative society on the bench. Within a fortnight of the Administrative Order, I received Your Lordship’s letter… intimating the proposal of my transfer.’ Painful and despairing words these for Justice Binod Kumar Roy, as he wrote to Chief Justice of India RC Lahoti on the eve of his impending transfer from the Punjab and Haryana High Court. In his detailed response to the proposal to shunt him out to the Gauhati High Court, an anguished Justice Roy wrote to the CJI seeking an answer that would never come. For a man who had decisively tilted the scales of justice towards ensuring judicial integrity and weeding out corruption, he found the proposal to transfer him particularly hard to stomach and even more difficult to fathom.Tehelka got exclusive access to the letter written on January 21, 2005, possibly the strongest words ever put to pen in the history of the country’s hallowed higher judiciary. Justice Roy reminded the CJI: “With anguish I convey that as per my information derived from my discussions with several former CJIs, no transfer of a chief justice has ever been made without his consent. I also put on record that during my discussions with then Hon’ble CJI Mr Justice VN Khare and Hon’ble Mr Justice Rajendra Babu, who later on himself became the Hon’ble CJI, I was told that since I have not committed any wrong, where is the question of my transfer and if at all, the transfer has to be of the errant judges. I was also told by Hon’ble CJI Justice VN Khare that because of paucity of time, committees of three judges could not be constituted by him to probe the conduct of some of the judges in regard to the allegations made against some of them reported by me… In the circumstances it is, with respect, surprising that I am now being proposed to be transferred (to the Gauhati HC) in breach of the established convention that no chief justice has ever been transferred without his consent… I regret to convey, as already conveyed to Your Lordship in my meeting on November 28, 2004, that my transfer from Punjab and Haryana High Court appears to be punitive (sic).”For over two years beginning October 2002, Justice Roy dazzled many by authoring decisive judgements that pierced the power structures of the states of Punjab and Haryana, and Chandigarh (see box). In the process, the chief justice, who has now taken over at the Gauhati HC, also made many a powerful foe. His tenure also marked the watershed in Indian judiciary: the infamous Black Day of April 19 when 25 of the 27 HC judges present went on strike. The classical example that a man who dares the system, perishes. Yet musters enough defiance to strum out a swansong that is nearly drowned by the stern message the system seeks to send. “Am I not entitled to know as to what were/are the precise reasons for the proposal to transfer me from Punjab and Haryana High Court? I would be obliged if I am made aware of the real reasons for my transfer so that I could effectively give my response thereto for objective consideration by Your Lordship and the other four distinguished members of the collegium (sic),” Justice Roy wrote to Justice Lahoti.The die had been cast for the chief justice a long time back. But Justice Roy is not an eminence given to calling a spade anything else. “On Sunday, July 11, 2004, I met Your Lordship for the first time after Your Lordship’s elevation as CJI and had detailed talks. Finally, Your Lordship asked me as to whether after the turmoil in the high court I would like to be shifted ‘for your peace?’ My answer was in the negative. But it was obvious that Your Lordship had already made up his mind to transfer me out of Chandigarh (sic),” read the letter to the CJI.Justice Roy came to Chandigarh at a time when the high court was rocked with charges that certain judges had secured favours for their children from the infamous Ravi Sidhu-headed Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC). Justice Roy took over from Chief Justice AB Saharya, who also stood isolated on account of his inquiry into the allegations against judges regarding the PPSC scam. To restore the faith of the public in the administration of justice, Chief Justice Roy took inspiration from the legendary HM Seervai, India’s finest scholar of constitutional law. Justice Roy passed an Administrative Order that the entire judiciary across the country could well have emulated. “The problem of nepotism — judges’ close relatives practising at the Bar and the resultant damage to the integrity of the judicial system and erosion of public confidence in the system — has for long been a major concern of the Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association and the basis for their repeated demand for transfer of all such judges. In order to save the judges from further embarrassment on this count, and to restore the sagging confidence of the Bar and the general public, I passed an Administrative Order on September 25, 2004, in exercise of my inherent powers as Master of the Roster, giving effect to a remedy for the malaise proposed by none other than the late Shri HM Seervai in his work on the Constitutional Law of India. None of the judges who have any relative(s), within the meaning of Rule 6 of the Bar Council of India Rules, practising in the high court could henceforth hear any case in which the relative of any other judge was/is appearing as counsel for any party. Aimed at preventing the emergence of what Shri Seervai has chosen to call ‘a mutual cooperative society’ on the Bench, the order has been widely welcomed by the Bar even though it has, not surprisingly, created ripples elsewhere… Within a fortnight of the Administrative Order, I received Your Lordship’s letter of October 8, 2004, intimating the proposal of my transfer,” wrote Justice Roy in his letter.Presidential RebuffWhen the President returned the proposal of the Supreme Court collegium to transfer Chief Justice BK Roy to the Gauhati High Court in December last, he cited the memorandum showing the procedure of appointment and transfer of chief justices and judges of the high courts. Para 25.3 of the memorandum states: “The views on the proposed transfer of a judge or a chief justice of a high court should be expressed in writing and should be considered by the Chief Justice of India and the four seniormost judges of the Supreme Court. The personal factors relating to the concerned judge, including the chief justice and his response to the proposal, including the preference of places, should invariably be taken into account by the Chief Justice of India and the first four puisne judges of the Supreme Court before arriving at a conclusion on the proposal.‘On July 11, 2004, I met Your Lordship for the first time after Your Lordship’s elevation as CJI. Your Lordship asked me whether I would like to be shifted ‘for your peace?’ My answer was in the negative. But it was obvious Your Lordship had already made up his mind to transfer me out of Chandigarh’To the last day of his tenure, Justice Roy stood in magnificent isolation even at cremations. Justice Roy could be seen alone and defiant with the rest of his colleagues standing away as the pyres smouldered. Just what could have brought this upon the high court?“From the changes made by me from time to time as Master of the Roster (which power of the chief justice stands emphatically, comprehensively and eloquently reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in State of Rajasthan vs Prakash Chand) to appointments and posting of Judicial Officers as Registrar General, Registrar (Judicial), Registrar (Administration), etc in the high court under Article 229 of the Constitution (which power of the chief justice has, again, been strongly upheld by the apex court in HC of judicature for Rajasthan vs Ramesh Chand Paliwal, setting all doubts at rest) to the even more onerous, sensitive and delicate task of looking into the many complaints received against brother judges and in the case of the graver of the complaints seeking their comments thereon with a view to sifting the grain from the chaff and placing after due and careful verification, the necessary information before the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India (as per the inhouse procedure laid down by the Supreme Court in Ravichandran Iyer vs Justice AM Bhattacharjee), every important action taken by me in good faith in the interest of better administration of justice was sought to be obstructed by the judges, acting in concert and in reckless disregard of the constitutional imperatives of judicial discipline, ethics and accountability and heedless of the damage to the credibility and image of the institution of which we all are part (sic),” wrote Justice Roy to the CJI, in a summation of the core issues that showed up the rifts running through the judicial monolith.The Arbitrator: Chief Justice of India RC Lahoti‘On July 11, 2004, I met Your Lordship for the first time after Your Lordship’s elevation as CJI. Your Lordship asked me whether I would like to be shifted ‘for your peace?’ My answer was in the negative. But it was obvious Your Lordship had already made up his mind to transfer me out of Chandigarh’On October 8, 2004, the Supreme Court collegium’s proposal to transfer Justice Roy to the Patna High Court for the ‘better administration of justice’ was conveyed to him by the CJI. Justice Roy accepted the proposal citing the Chief Justices’ Conference of 2004, which recommended a policy that would allow a local judge to become the chief justice of his home state. However, the policy of the Government of India as laid down in 1983 was not to appoint a local judge as chief justice. On November 23, 2004, the CJI informed Justice Roy: “The Government of India has not agreed with your transfer as chief justice of Patna High Court in view of the policy decision taken by the Government of India in 1983. It is proposed to transfer you as the chief justice of the Gauhati High Court. This is for your information.”This stung Justice Roy, a man known in inner circles as deeply sensitive and uncompromising on the entwined issues of morality and corruption. He wrote back: “I felt surprised and humiliated when I was thus apprised by Your Lordship of the proposal to transfer me to Gauhati High Court without asking for my response.” No less an entity than the President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam, felt constrained to reject the proposal of the Supreme Court collegium to transfer Justice Roy to Gauhati HC. The President returned the proposal in late December 2004 as Justice Roy’s views on the transfer to Guwahati had not been sought by the collegium as required under the Memorandum of Procedure. Roy’s views were then sought by the CJI and the thus came the letter dated January 21.This was not the first time the President had come to the rescue of the beleaguered chief justice. After the strike by the judges in April, the President wrote to the then CJI VN Khare, expressing his anguish at such a turn of events in the portals of justice. This response was also a first such intervention by a President in the history of India’s higher judiciary.In his letter to the CJI, Justice Roy provides an insightful narrative on those dark days that led to the strike. Of judges grouping together and holding meetings under Justice GS Singhvi, who was the seniormost judge after him, the subsequent ‘mutiny against the Constitution’, of the real possibility of the high court nearly shutting down.“Following the discharge by me of my supervisory responsibility as Chief Justice and my efforts to inculcate both discipline and accountability in the administration of justice in the high court and the subordinate courts, both on the judicial and administrative sides, with particular focus on maintaining and weeding out corruption at all levels, puisne judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court not only denied me their support and cooperation but following the transfer of Mr Justice NK Sodhi to the Kerala High Court in late November 2003 and his departure from Chandigarh for that reason, got together to organise and announce a boycott of all work of Inspection of Subordinate Courts vide their letter dated December 10, 2003, stating that ‘it is not possible for us to look after the administrative work of the districts’. The work thus boycotted is the constitutional obligation and responsibility of every high court judge under Article 235 of the Constitution. Beginning February 26, 2004, they also boycotted all committees constituted in relation to various matters (sic),” revealed Justice Roy.“On April 19, 2004, the blackest day in the history of the Indian judiciary, as many as 25 of the 27 judges… took leave en masse. On the morning of April 19, 2004, itself, I sent a letter to the then Hon’ble CJI Mr Justice VN Khare, apprising his Lordship of the action of the judges and concluding as under:‘I have definite information that the judges under the leadership of Mr Justice GS Singhvi have been holding meetings and had yet another meeting yesterday before they sent their intimations to me. Their intimations that they shall not be holding court from 19th April to 23rd April is an extremely unfortunate step of theirs just to paralyse the judicial functions of the court in order to bring me to disrepute and nothing but a pressure tactic on me in regard to my functions — judicial and administrative… So far as today is concerned, at least one judge, Mr Justice Amar Dutt, has informed me that he has not gone on leave and shall be coming to court. Accordingly, I have constituted a Special Division Bench of his and mine till lunch so that the urgent cases could be taken up and after lunch we will be sitting singly to take up urgent cases of single judges… I am extremely sorry to bother Your Lordship but I am left with no option and with heavy heart to inform and with regrets that what will happen if all judges except me go on leave. I assure Your Lordship that being the chief justice, I cannot allow my court not to function but if I fall ill then I will be left with no option but to close my high court,” he wrote.Justice Roy was transferred to the Gauhati High Court after he expressed his views through his letter to the CJI. But the question still remains. What were the precise reasons for his transfer out of the Punjab and Haryana High Court?Roy in CourtroomThe Petitioner: BK Roy ‘Following my efforts to inculcate both discipline and accountability in the administration of justice in the high court and the subordinate courts, puisne judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court got together to organise and announce a boycott of all work’• On the last day of his holding court, a Division Bench headed by Chief Justice BK Roy pronounced judgement in the Chandigarh Law Institute case, marking the culmination of nearly two-and-a-half years of his crusade against corruption in all organs of the State. The judgement struck down the allotment of government land at a loss of Rs 139 crore to a private company floated by two sons of a sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. He asked the Union Territory Administrator to initiate disciplinary action against those involved in the act.• Just four months back, a full Bench comprising Justice Roy, Justice Rajiv Bhalla and Justice Surya Kant had quashed the selection of DSPs under the sports quota as it was manipulated by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s office. “The fact that the principal secretary to the chief minister was made chairman of the selection committee, a son of another officer from the staff associated with the chief minister was selected… castigates upon the independence and fairness of the selection committee,” the judges held. The principal secretary concerned was SK Sinha. The Bench also initiated contempt proceedings against Singh’s aide BIS Chahal, whose son was selected, for interfering in the administration of justice by attempting to prevent the sports department from producing the entire record before the court.• A Division Bench under Justice Roy framed charges under the Contempt of Courts Act against CM Munjal, the chairman of the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana, who was also an additional advocate general in Punjab. While defending a criminal case, Munjal had misrepresented a judge’s ‘oral order’ to the police to stay the arrest of his relative, while no such order had actually been passed. Munjal had to quit as council chairman. Close on the heels of Justice Roy’s transfer, another Division Bench accepted Munjal’s apology.• Enforcing rigour in the administration of criminal justice, a full Bench headed by Justice Roy disagreed with the idea mooted by another judge, Justice VK Bali, that FIRs of non-compoundable criminal offences could be quashed by the HC if the parties entered into a compromise. “This court,” held Justice Amar Dutt, with whom Justice Roy concurred, “will necessarily have to bear in mind the various statutes… and ensure that indiscriminate exercise of these powers does not encourage the abuse of the process of law.” Regretting that Justice Bali had failed to prepare his opinion for more than six months, Roy also disapproved of the practice of pronouncing orders without giving detailed reasons.•Justice Roy’s tenure is vividly associated with the Forest Hill golf resort case. A Division Bench comprising Justice Roy and Justice Surya Kant ordered the closure of the resort, constructed in violation of Central and state forest and land ceiling laws. The hearings revealed the names of the ruling politicians, bureaucrats and two sitting judges of the HC, to whom the club had offered memberships. The bench ordered a CBI probe into the affair.On April 2, 2004, Justice Roy issued notices to the two judges, Justice Viney Mittal and Justice Virender Singh, who had accepted ‘ex-officio’ membership of the resort. The two judges wrote back, denying his jurisdiction to raise the issue. On April 9, 19 other judges and the two judges involved wrote to the chief justice accusing him of seeking to “demoralise and harass the judges”. In his rejoinder to them the very next day, Justice Roy spoke of their holding “a brief for the owners of clubs” and that a “guilty mind is always suspicious”. On April 18, 25 judges sent in their letters saying they would remain on leave on April 19. April 02, 2005 Print this storyFeedbackAdd to favoritesEmail this story
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 03:06:12 +0000
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