Author: Chandrani Banerjee
Publication: Outlook
Date: August 2, 2010
URL: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?266349
Introduction: The CBI chargesheet in the PF
scam has three strange omissions
Before he died in jail in rather mysterious
circumstances, Ashutosh Asthana, the main accused in the provident fund scam
at the the Ghaziabad district court, had named 33 judges as beneficiaries.
A court clerk, Asthana is alleged to have illegally withdrawn provident fund
money of lower-level employees and, according to his statement to a magistrate,
passed it on, among others, to the judges. This was on since 2001; annual
withdrawals averaged Rs 34.56 crore. But the 58-page chargesheet filed last
week by the CBI-to which the case went in September 2008, after the Uttar
Pradesh police was seen making little progress-makes three notable exceptions:
Justice Tarun Chatterjee, then a sitting judge of the Supreme Court; and Justice
Subhash Aggarwal and Justice Subhash Chand Nigam, both former judges of the
Allahabad High Court. These judges had all been named in the statement.
Former judges and votaries of transparency
in the judiciary are shocked. "Justice Tarun Chatterjee should have been
the first.... Why is there no reference to him?" asks Hosbet Suresh,
a former judge of the Bombay High Court. "He neither figures in the chargesheet
nor in the list of people against whom there are no charges. So where is he?"
J.S. Verma, former chief justice of India
and an ardent campaigner for the judicial accountability bill, says, "The
Supreme Court is the highest institution to which people come for justice.
So if any judge, serving or retired, figures in a case, his name has to be
cleared to maintain the sanctity of the court."
In his statement, Asthana had said he used
money from an illegal withdrawal to buy two Voltas air-conditioners, which
were delivered to Justice Chatterjee's house in Calcutta. The bills were in
the name of the judge's son. He also alleged that he had arranged for some
carpentry work to be done at the judge's house and supplied the judge with
some expensive cellphones.
While the omission of these senior judges
from the chargesheet is glaring enough, considering they were named by an
accused-itself an extraordinary event-it isn't as if the investigation has
found much against the other judges named. According to the chargesheet, only
six of the 33 judges named by Asthana are actually implicated in the case.
The rest, says the CBI, were involved through "acts of omission and commission"
but there's no clinching evidence to initiate prosecution, so a report has
been sent to the "competent authorities" for suitable action. This
is surprising, because the CBI investigation largely corroborates what Asthana
alleged.
The six judges the investigation agency's
chargesheet does name are: R.P. Yadav, R.N. Mishra and A.K. Singh, all former
judges of the Allahabad High Court; and R.P. Mishra, R.S. Chaubey and Arun
Kumar, all district judges.
The investigation has found that money fraudulently
withdrawn was used for paying the judges' personal bills-including grocery
bills, and in one case, even dowry. "Imagine! Judges in a CBI chargesheet!"
says Justice P.B. Sawant, a former judge of the Bombay High Court. "This
is quite clearly a case of misappropriation of funds. Corruption has no place
in the judiciary. This has not only affected the reputation of the judiciary,
but also the faith reposed in it by several crore people."
There is much anguish and anxiety about what
course this case, now in prosecution stage, will take. "The point is,
no one can arrest a judge directly. Permission has to be sought from the chief
justice and it will never come through," says Justice Hosbet. "They
will simply be sent to some faraway posting. Take the case of Justice Dinakaran.
There are allegations and a whole inquiry against him, and still he's been
sent to Sikkim. Without proper accountability, I doubt if any case against
judges will reach a conclusion. Where are we headed?"
The Ghaziabad provident fund scam is also
being made out as a test case in the as yet slow journey towards judicial
accountability. "Members of the judiciary are treated as one up compared
to other citizens. There's a lot of hope and faith reposed in them because
they are considered carriers of truth and fair opinion," says Justice
Verma. "Of the provident fund scam, all I can say is that it is shocking
and shameful."
The CBI, on its part, refused to comment on
the case or its investigations as the matter is sub-judice and likely to come
up before a monitoring bench of the Supreme Court. But with the main accused
dead-officially, Asthana is said to have committed suicide-there is no telling
what will come of the case.
