Likely Chief Justice of India under a cloud

A month ago a State Chief Minister wrote to the Chief Justice of India, Justice SA Bobde, levelling serious allegations of impropriety against his likely successor. So far there has been no action to clear the air.

Justice Bobde is due to retire in April next year. The senior most judge of the Supreme Court, Justice NV Ramanna, is the logical choice as his successor.

Earlier, Justice Ramanna was Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court. Still earlier, he was Advocate General of Andhra Pradesh. He was appointed to that post by the Telugu Desam party (TDP) government.  

When Telangana state was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014, the capital city of Hyderabad fell in that state. The TDP government, headed by Nara Chandrababu Naidu, decided to build a new capital city, to be known as Amaravati, on the banks of the Krishna river.

In 2015 Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for Amaravati. It was to be built over a 10-year period.

In last year’s Assembly elections the YSR Congress, a breakaway group of the Congress party, defeated the TDP. Its leader, YS Jaganmohan Reddy, who was critical of the Amaravati project, became the Chief Minister.

He decided to abandon the Amaravati project. He said only the Legislature will function from there. The State government offices would be in Visakhapatnam. The High Court would be located at Karnool.

According to Jaganmohan Reddy, a large number of land deals took place in the Amaravati area before it was chosen as site of the capital. He believes TDP leaders and rich members of Chandrababu Naidu’s Kamma community knew the capital would be located there and bought land at throwaway prices.

Jaganmohan Reddy, in a letter to Justice Bobde, which was made public, alleged wrongdoing by the Andhra Pradesh High Court while Justice Ramanna headed it. He further alleged that even after moving to Delhi he had influenced High Court decisions in the interests of the TDP and Chandrababu Naidu.

He claimed there was an “indelible trail” leading back to overt and covert actions of Chandrababu Naidu “through Honourable Sri Justice NV Ramana”.

He also accused Justice Ramanna of aiding and abetting an enterprise to destabilise and topple his government.

Amaravati also figures in the letter.  He alleged that two daughters of Justice Ramanna had bought land there before the Chandrababu Naidu  government designated it as the site of the new capital.

Chandrababu Naidu did not respond to media’s queries about Jaganmoham Reddy’s letter to Justice Bobde.

Jaganmohan Reddy’s charges can be seen as a fallout of the long-running feud between him and Chandrababu Naidu.

The propriety of the Chief Minister making allegations against a sitting judge in a letter to the CJI and going public with it can certainly be questioned. But, then, he can argue that it would have been easy to ignore the matter if he had not placed the matter in the public realm.

If the Chief Minister’s conduct is questionable on grounds of propriety, so is that of a host of persons belonging to what can be called the Judicial establishment, who have sprung up in defence of Justice Ramanna.

The Bar Council of India was “aghast and appalled” at the Chief Minister’s “reprehensible move”, its Chairman, Manan Kumar Mishra, said in a statement. The BCI is the regulatory body of the legal profession.

Mishra said Jaganmohan Reddy had targeted Justice Ramana and judges of Andhra Pradesh High Court, with the sole aim of undermining the independence of the judiciary. He saw the release of the letter to the media as “a clear manifestation of the conspiracy to scandalise and malign the judges”.

Attorney General KK Venugopal said the timing of the Chief Minister’s letter was suspect. He also said the CJI could initiate contempt proceedings against the Chief Minister.  

The AG granted permission to two lawyers to move contempt of court proceedings against Jagmohan Reddy in the Supreme Court.

Petitions filed by two lawyers seeking Jaganmohan Reddy’s removal as Chief Minister and a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the alleged conspiracy behind his letter are also before the Supreme Court.

One thing is clear: they do not want any inquiry to ascertain if there is any truth in the Chief Minister’s allegations. It is preposterous to suggest that a complaint to the CJI against an individual judge amounts to scandalising the entire judiciary.

Silencing critics is not the way to redeem the court’s prestige. The CJI must consider setting up a committee of former judges who command respect by virtue of their record to examine the Chief Minister’s complaint.