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Panel to probe charges against Karnataka Judges

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI DEC. 3. Giving a stern warning to the higher judiciary that corruption or misconduct would be dealt with severely, the Chief Justice of India, G.B. Pattanaik, has appointed the second "in-house'' committee headed by the Chief Justice of Bombay High Court to probe into certain allegations against three Judges of the Karnataka High Court.

The committee, comprising the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, C.K. Thakkar, the Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court, G.L. Gupta, and a senior judge of the Orissa High Court, A.K. Patnaik, has been set up as a sequel to a report sent by the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High court, N.K. Jain, who was asked to hold preliminary enquiries and send a report.

The committee is expected to summon the three Judges — Justice N.S. Veerabhadraiah, Justice Chandrasekhariah and Justice V. Gopala Gowda — and probe their reported "misbehaviour'' in a resort near Mysore on the basis of the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Justice Jain in his report. The committee is expected to examine several documents relating to the past conduct of the Judges, their foreign trips and also try to find out who all accompanied them and funded those trips. It would also go into High Court records about their visits to several places in the country in the recent past.

The committee will examine them individually and record their statements and depositions. Sources say the three Judges are to be transferred to the High Courts of Guwahati, Patna and Jammu and Kashmir and the Chief Justices of these High Courts have already been informed of the transfers. However, according to reports reaching here, lawyers in Guwahati are up in arms against the transfer of one of the three Karnataka Judges to their High court on the ground that the Guwahati High Court is no "dumping ground" for tainted judges.

Second "in-house'' committee

This is the second committee appointed after the in-house mechanism was evolved at the Chief Justices' conference to probe into allegations of misconduct against members of the judiciary. The first committee headed by the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High court, A.R. Lakshmanan, had already completed its probe against three Judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and is likely to submit its report to the CJI sometimes next week.

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