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Panel completes probe against three judges

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI Nov. 30. The "in-house" committee, constituted by the Chief Justice of India, G.B. Pattanaik, to inquire into the alleged involvement of three Judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the Punjab Service Commission scam today completed its probe.

The committee, comprising the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, A.R. Lakshmanan, the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, B. Subhashan Reddy, and Justice Jha of the Allahabad High Court, which started the probe yesterday, finished the task assigned to it this morning.

The committee members called on the CJI this afternoon and informed him of the completion of the probe and the CJI was understood to have conveyed his appreciation and happiness for the manner in which the committee had done its job.

The committee is meeting in Hyderabad early next week to finalise the report for being submitted to the CJI within a week thereafter. And any further action by the CJI on the three judges would depend on the inquiry report. According to reliable sources, the committee on Friday grilled the three "tainted" judges individually and five others from 10 a.m. till late in the night and recorded their depositions and statements in respect of the allegations.

They were stated to have completely denied all the allegations of their involvement in the PPSC scam.

The committee, which was reported to have ascertained the facts from the Advocate-General of Punjab, examined the three Judges — Justice Amarbir Singh, Justice M.L. Singhal and Justice Mehtab Singh Gill — two alleged "touts" of the former PPSC Chairman, Sidhu, the former SP Intelligence and the SP Vigilance Bureau.

The committee which had earlier examined the report of the former Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Saharya, submitted to the then Chief Justice, B.N. Kirpal, confronted the three judges with the conclusions in the report and sought their views on each of the points.

Following the Service Commission scam highlighted in the media, Mr. Justice Kirpal appointed Mr. Justice Saharya to conduct a probe against the three judges and submit a report. Accordingly, Mr. Justice Saharya completed the enquiry and sent his report to Mr. Justice Kirpal, in which he was understood to have stopped short of exonerating them.

As there was no follow-up action, the present CJI appointed the high-level committee to probe the allegations. This is the first instance of a committee being appointed to probe the conduct of High Court judges after the conference of the Chief Justices of the High Courts and the Judges of the Supreme Court evolved the in-house disciplinary procedure. According to the sources, this would be a test case and the working of this mechanism would depend on the outcome of the report and subsequent action by the CJI and his collegium of judges.

Meanwhile, the Committee on Judicial Accountability (CJA), which included the former Union Law Ministers, Ram Jethmalani and Shanti Bhushan, and other eminent lawyers, met here on Thursday and expressed happiness over the appointment of the probe committee. Prashant Bhushan, advocate, told The Hindu that the CJA felt that such allegations against High Court Judges had resulted in a serious erosion of the credibility of the judiciary and it was time the senior judges of the Supreme Court took effective steps to restore the credibility and image of the judiciary.

Consent sought from Karnataka judges

According to sources, the three Judges of Karnataka High Court, against whom certain allegations were reported in the media, are likely to be transferred to the High Courts of Patna, Guwahati and Jammu and Kashmir and their individual consent have been sought before any action is taken on their transfer.

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