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Karnataka chief justice drops inquiry, initiated on the Centre’s request, against a district judge the collegium had recommended for elevation to the high court.

New Delhi: Karnataka high court Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari has quietly put an end to a highly questionable inquiry against a senior district and sessions judge whose elevation to the high court has been cleared twice by the Supreme Court collegium.

The decision came after the controversial probe was questioned by one of the most senior judges of the Supreme Court, Jasti Chelameswar.

Highly placed sources in the apex court told ThePrint that in a letter to Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra last week, Chelameswar had questioned the propriety of Maheshwari initiating an inquiry against district and sessions judge P. Krishna Bhat at the request of the central government.

His letter also refers to the fact that the Modi government had stalled Bhat’s elevation without offering any cogent reason.

After Misra’s office informed the Karnataka chief justice about the letter, Maheshwari is learnt to have conveyed to the Supreme Court that he is ending the probe.

Chelameswar’s letter

In his letter, copies of which were marked to all the SC judges, Chelameswar is learnt to have taken serious objection to Maheshwari’s decision to probe old allegations levelled against Bhat by a female judicial officer despite his predecessor absolving him after a thorough probe.

He also questioned the propriety of the law ministry writing directly to the high court chief justice for a probe against Bhat on the basis of a complaint sent by the woman, who had earlier been indicted by Bhat after an inquiry conducted on the orders of the high court.

“He (Chelmeswar) has raised the right issue,” said a Supreme Court judge who shared the contents of the letter. “How can the high court chief justice decide on his own to launch a fresh probe on old charges against a district judge, knowing full well that his name has been cleared for elevation by the SC collegium, and that the Centre has been sitting on the recommendation for some unstated motive?”

“I am actually surprised that it was Justice Chelameswar who raised the issue and not the CJI, who should have immediately put an end to this unethical and arbitrary action,” the judge added.

According to the judge, Chelamewar’s letter, four to five pages long, also talked about judicial independence and how it was incumbent upon the judiciary to insulate itself from the executive.

He said several other judges of the Supreme Court agreed with the “tenor” of the letter, and wanted CJI Misra to officially raise the issue of the Modi government inexplicably sitting on collegium recommendations for a long period, sometimes almost two years.

Read the full letter:

What is the case against Bhat?

After lawyers practising in a Karnataka district court complained against the conduct of a female judicial officer, the HC had asked Bhat to conduct an inquiry.

In his report, Bhat indicted the female judge. Sources in the Karnataka HC told ThePrint that the female judicial officer had even refused to pay heed to the administrative judge in charge of her district, and walked out of a meeting.

It was only after the administrative committee of the HC sought her explanation that she first filed a written complaint against Bhat, accusing him of “atrocities and abuse of power”. After being indicted, she put in her papers, only to withdraw her resignation within days.

However, after the HC collegium recommended Bhat, the most senior district judge at the time, for elevation to the HC bench, she started sending complaints against him to the Centre and the Supreme Court, accusing him of misbehaviour and targeting her.

After receiving her complaint, the Centre returned the recommendation of the SC collegium to elevate Bhat. The then CJI T.S. Thakur subsequently asked Maheshwari’s predecessor, Subhro Kamal Mukherjee, to hold an inquiry.

In his report, filed in November 2016, Mukherjee gave a clean chit to Bhat, saying the woman’s complaint was without basis, and aimed at maligning Bhat and stalling his appointment as HC judge. He termed the allegations “incorrect and concocted”.

Thereafter, in April last year, the SC collegium reiterated its recommendation, but the Modi government has yet to act on it. Under the memorandum of procedure (MoP), the Centre has no option but to process the case once the collegium reiterates its recommendation.

The main premise for a fresh inquiry against Bhat was that previous Karnataka chief justice Mukherjee had neither called Bhat nor the judicial officer to testify before filing his report. However, he didn’t need to do so as he based his report on facts that were readily available, sources said.

The government’s stand

The government did write to the Karnataka CJ on the matter, annexing the woman’s complaint from December last year and seeking a report, but has washed its hands of the fresh twist in the case.

Sources in the law ministry expressed surprise at the Karnataka CJ’s decision to revisit the matter, maintaining that it was an internal issue of the judiciary. “He (Bhat) is a serving judicial officer and hence is under the administrative control of the state high court,” said a senior functionary in the ministry of law and justice.

“After we received a complaint, we forwarded it to the high court. This is how it is always done. Even we were surprised that he had initiated a fresh inquiry on his own. The issue is, how can the chief justice of a high court examine a complaint when a complaint with almost similar allegations by the same person was found baseless by his predecessor?” the functionary added.

“There has to be closure. But it is an internal matter for the judiciary and the government has no role to play,” the functionary added.

As first reported by ThePrint, the Modi government has been sitting on the SC collegium’s recommendation, first made in August 2016, to elevate Bhat to the high court. The request for the appointment of other judicial officers, recommended at the same time by the high court collegium, was processed.

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