india

Updated: Apr 20, 2019 06:23 IST

Four people accused of impersonating the Chief Justice of India (CJI) and his secretary and seeking information from the acting Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court on elevation of a Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Judicial Member, were chargesheeted by the Delhi police earlier this week.

According to the charge sheet, the four accused—Pramod Kumar, Mrityunjay Pandey and Jai Kumar Nayar from Delhi and S Ashok from Hyderabad— entered into a criminal conspiracy to get information on the purported elevation of one V Ajay Kumar, a judicial member of the CAT in the principal bench at New Delhi, to Karnataka High Court and make ₹5 lakh in return.

According to the charge sheet, an accused Pramod Kumar worked with late Union minister Ananth Kumar as his secretary. Kumar’s wife, however, denied knowing any secretary by this name. In the charge sheet, the police’s special cell says the accused planned and called the acting Karnataka Chief Justice on February 8 and 11, this year, and spoke to him pretending to be the Chief Justice of India.

The charge sheet says, “That accused Pramod Kumar impersonated himself as PS to Chief Justice of India and as Chief Justice of India to collect the information with regard to “empanelment” of CAT Judicial member.

V Ajay Kumar, CAT member, denied having knowledge of the matter and refused to comment.

The charge sheet says that the accused used an application, which allows users to mask their identity and use someone else’s number to make calls. The group even put an image of CJI Ranjan Gogoi as display picture on WhatsApp, reveals the charge sheet.

The matter came to light after one of the Karnataka High Court staff got in touch with the personal secretary of CJI informing him about the call. Delhi Police had registered FIR after receiving a complaint from SC official.

While the other three accused people are out on bail, Pramod Kumar on April 16 moved a bail plea through his lawyers, Murari Tiwari and Harshit Batra.