780-463-8800
[email protected]
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Wednesday said it will go to the root of the alleged consp-iracy and sensational clai-ms made by a lawyer that there is a larger conspiracy to frame Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi in the sexual harassment allegations against him.
A three-judge special bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra said if fixers continue to work and manipulate the judiciary as claimed, neither this institution nor any of “us” will survive.
The bench, also comprising justices R.F. Nariman and Deepak Gupta, asked lawyer Utsav Singh Bains, who has made claims of a larger conspiracy, to file another affidavit by Thursday morning after he claimed that he has some more “incriminating evidence”.
The bench said it will take up the matter for hearing on Thursday. “We will inquire and go to the root of alleged claims of fixers at work and manipulating the judiciary. If they continue to work then none of us will survive… Fixing has no role to play in the system. We will inquire and take it to the logical end,” it said.
The bench also clarified that there is no connection between the hearing of Bains’ claims of larger conspiracy and the in-house inquiry ordered into the sexual harassment allegations against the CJI.
Earlier in the day, the apex court directed chiefs of the CBI, IB and Delhi Police to appear and meet in chambers the three judges who are hearing his claim that there was a larger conspiracy to frame the CJI.
The entire episode is “very disturbing” as it concerns the independence of the judiciary in the country, the bench said.
It turned down a fervent request of Attorney General K.K. Venugopal and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to order a court-monitored SIT probe into the matter, saying the court was not venturing into any enquiry at this moment.
“It is not an enquiry. We are meeting these officers in secret. We don’t want any evidence to be disclosed,” the bench said.
It had asked the three officers to meet the judges in chamber at 12:30 pm. After meeting the directors of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), and the Delhi Police commissioner, the bench reassembled at 3 pm to hear the matter at length.
At the outset Mr Bains, who has filed an affidavit in the top court claiming a larger conspiracy of alleged fixers to frame the CJI on allegations of sexual harassment, placed before the bench material to substantiate his claims.
The bench after perusing the material, placed by him in a sealed cover, said “very disturbing” facts have emerged in the matter.
The hearing on April 20 in the case, titled as a matter of “great public importance touching upon the independence of judiciary”, was held after stories were published about the sexual harassment allegations levelled against the CJI.
