Amid raging controversy over government bypassing SC Collegium in appointing a district and sessions judge to the Karnataka high court and allegations levelled against him by a lady civil judge, it has now emerged that two former CJIs, the current CJI and a former HC chief justice had found no merit in her charges and cleared Krishna Bhat ’s appointment to the high court bench.Further, Intelligence Bureau had also not found material/evidence against Bhat to substantiate the allegations.ET has reviewed a confidential note signed by the then CJI JS Khehar and justices Dipak Misra and J Chelameswar . The note says: “There was no material even with the Intelligence Bureau to even prima facie affirm the veracity of the allegations.”In 2017, SC collegium headed by CJI Khehar had recommended that Bhat be elevated to the HC bench. CJI Dipak Misra and Justice Chelameswar, who were members of the Collegium then, had also signed on the confidential note, clearing Bhat’s elevation.On April 6, 2017, Khehar wrote in a confidential note addressed to the then Union law minister: “I am of the view that the recommendation of the Supreme Court Collegium made on August 23, 2016, for elevation of Krishna Bhat, Judicial officer to the high court bench, deserves to be processed without any further delay, particularly because he has already suffered loss of seniority to his seven junior colleagues.”Earlier, on August 23, 2016, SC Collegium headed by TS Thakur, the then CJI, had cleared appointment of Krishna Bhat, the recommendation was also endorsed by justices AR Dave and JS Khehar.Interestingly, in 2017, SC Collegium headed by Khehar cleared Bhat’s appointment only “after having carefully gone through the...report/comments of the chief justice of the Karnataka high court”.On November 14, 2016, the then chief justice of the Karnataka high court, justice SK Mukerjee, gave a clean chit to Bhat and submitted his confidential report to the CJI, stating that allegations against Bhat were found to be incorrect.Justice Mukerjee’s report said: “Allegation levelled against Shri Krishna Bhat were incorrect and concocted and that the complainant was making such baseless allegations only to malign.”ET on March 20 had reported about newly-appointed justice Dinesh Maheshwari, chief justice of the Karnataka high court, writing to CJI Dipak Misra about the complaint against Bhat, received from the Ministry of Law and Justice.Justice Maheshwari stated in his letter that matters regarding complaint against Bhat and report made by Bhat against the lady civil judge were taken up in the administrative committee, but were “simply deferred”.“The resultant position has been that these matters have only remained pending and no decision has been taken thereupon,” wrote Maheshwari.This prompted senior SC judge, justice J Chelameswar, to shoot off a strongly-worded letter to CJI, questioning suo motu stand taken by Maheshwari, on a communication directly forwarded to the Karnataka HC, by bypassing the Collegium.Chelameswar said: “Someone from Bangalore has already beaten us in the race to the bottom. The chief justice of the Karnataka high court is more than willing to do the executive bidding, behind our back.”While requesting CJI to convene a full-court meeting on the issue, Justice Chelameswar wrote: “We, the judges of the Supreme Court of India, are being accused of ceding our independence and our institutional integrity to the executive’s incremental encroachment.The executive is always impatient, and brooks no disobedience even of the judiciary if it can. Attempts were always made to treat the chief justices as the departmental heads in the secretariat. So much for our ‘independence and preeminence’ as a distinct state organ.”Meanwhile, top SC sources asked “are six judges who cleared Krishna Bhat’s appointment lying, are you questioning the credibility of SC judges and chief justice of Karnataka HC who said this is a concocted complaint, the issue is about judicial independence and why did government bypass Collegium and forward the complaint directly to Karnataka HC, why wasn’t Bhat appointed despite his reiteration of his recommendation”.Earlier, On December 11 last year, the lady civil judge had complained against Bhat to the PMO, which marked it to the Ministry of Law and Justice. She had levelled “allegations of harassment” and claimed in her representation that “P Krishna Bhat had managed her complaint dated June 3, 2016, and until her representation, she had not been called for any inquiry or evidence (sic)”.