Supreme Court judge Arun Mishra on Monday said the entire country is “doubting the credibility” of the justice system. The apex court was hearing a petition filed by senior lawyer Kamini Jaiswal who had sought a Special Investigation Team inquiry into the medical colleges bribery case, Live Law reported.
A three-judge Supreme Court bench comprising Justices RK Agarwal, Arun Mishra and AM Khanwilkar reserved its order on the petition. It is expected to pronounce an order on the maintainability and propriety of Jaiswal’s petition on Tuesday, and decide if filing two petitions with identical facts amounted to “forum shopping”. The bench will also decided if the allegations made against the chief justice amounted to contempt of court. The other petition in the court was filed by the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms.
The case, which the Central Bureau of Investigation is looking into, involves allegations that former members of the higher judiciary took bribes to manipulate court orders in favour of medical colleges that had failed to get official registrations.
“If such allegations [are] to be considered like in this manner, then no judge will be spared,” Justice Arun Mishra told Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for petitioner Jaiswal. “The whole country is now doubting the credibility of this institution.” The allegations amounted to a deliberate attempt to scandalise the institution and denigrate the system, he said.
Attorney General KK Venugopal said that the two petitions and the events over the last week had damaged the institution. “Now the question is how to repair the damage? It can be done by withdrawing the petition,” Venugopal said.
Bhushan contended that no direct allegations were made against the chief justice. He argued that the petitions were filed due to seriousness of the allegations in the CBI’s First Information Report. “Although it does not name any acting judge directly but talk of bribes to influence a pending case…it’s serious,” Mishra said.
Controversy in Supreme Court
Jaiswal’s petition was mentioned on November 9 before a two-judge bench headed by Justice Chelameswar for urgent hearing. The judge decided to take up the petition. This bench referred the matter to a larger five-judge Constitution bench on November 13. The petitioners had said that the bench should exclude Chief Justice Dipak Misra, who handled cases related to the Medical Council of India earlier this year, as there would be a conflict of interest.
A similar petition was slated to be heard by another bench on November 10. However, a Constitution bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in an unprecedented hearing, nullified Justice Chelameswar’s order from November 9. The bench had said “the chief justice is the master of the roster” and no other judges of the Supreme Court can constitute benches.
On November 11, the Supreme Court even issued a circular that from now on, all unassigned or unlisted cases can be mentioned only before the chief justice of India.
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