The Hindu : Mysore incident: order reserved on plea to make report public

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 07, 2003

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Mysore incident: order reserved on plea to make report public

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 6. The Supreme Court today reserved judgment on the maintainability of a writ petition to make public the inquiry committee's report relating to certain allegations against three Judges of the Karnataka High Court in the Mysore incident.

A Bench comprising Justice S. Rajendra Babu and Justice G.P. Mathur, said that "we would consider the matter" after hearing senior counsel, Shanti Bhushan for the petitioner, Indira Jaising, who sought a direction to the Registrar-General of the court to furnish a copy of the inquiry report.

Mr. Bhushan contended that lack of transparency in any matter gave rise to speculation and rumours and the Supreme Court had laid down a law that in the public interest information should be disclosed as far as possible.

To a question from the Bench that if the Chief Justice of India had ordered a "discreet inquiry" could it be argued that the report be made public, counsel said that it was not a discreet inquiry by the three-judge panel as they held public hearings at several places.

The Bench then reserved the verdict on the maintainability of the petition.

In her petition, Ms. Jaising had argued that a panel of three Judges — Justice C.K. Thakkar, Chief Justice of Kerala High Court, Justice J.L. Gupta and Justice A.K. Patnaik of the Orissa High Court which probed the incident gave a report to the CJI but the contents were not made public.

She said that in the interest of credibility of the judicial system the committee report be made public and the faith of the public in an open, credible and transparent justice dispensation system was reinforced.

She said she wrote a letter to the CJI on February 3 requesting that a copy of the report be made available to her as she was deeply concerned with the need for an open and transparent functioning of the judiciary but she did not receive any reply. Hence the petition.

The petitioner said the mechanism set up by the apex court to investigate the incident had not been adequate to ascertain the truth.

She sought a direction to make the report public and to entrust the investigation relating to the alleged Mysore incident to the CBI.

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