http://www.tehelka.com/story_main47.asp?filename=Ne021010Chief_Injustices.asp
From the affidavits given by Mr Prashant Bhushan in contempt case against him, it is prima-facie evident that corrupt judges in SC have been spared only because many MPs do not want to sign on impeachment motions, since they have their own cases pending in SC!
So judiciary is independent of legislature, but legislators are not independent from judiciary!
The only hope is that the ‘caught red-handed’ scenario does not later turn into ‘ no evidence found’ and the judges get reinstated. They are only suspended pending an inquiry, not really dismissed permanently!
Aug 26, 2010, 12.59am IST
HYDERABAD: Five judges belonging to the state's subordinate judiciary were suspended by the AP High Court on Wednesday for allegedly copying while writing their LLM examinations at the Arts College of Kakatiya University in Warangal on Tuesday.
The judges were doing this course under distance mode from Kakatiya University as the degree would help them gain some increments in their careers.
Those placed under suspension include K Ajitsimha Rao, senior civil judge, Ranga Reddy district, M Kistappa, principal senior civil judge, Anantapur, P Vijayendar Reddy, second additional district judge, Ranga Reddy district, M Srinivasachary, senior civil judge in Bapatla of Guntur district and Hanumantha Rao, the additional junior civil judge in Warangal.
They were allegedly caught red-handed in the act of copying on Tuesday by the authorities and upon receipt of this information, the HC suspended them from service pending an inquiry. The HC would soon launch disciplinary proceedings against all these judicial officers, sources said.
Only in India if a High court judge gets Rs 15 lakh cash delivered at door, the powers that be will look the other way! Now it seems the law ministry is siding with CPIO of Supreme Court on the matter of disclosure of information under RTI. If CJI was not enough in holding lid on happenings inside Supreme Court, now law ministry is backing him up as a spokesperson.
CPIO had earlier this month denied information to RTI applicant Abhishek Shukla regarding chief justice of India (CJI) KG Balakrishnan’s inputs on transferring Punjab and Haryana high court judge Nirmal Yadav to another HC, saying the matter was confidential.
Yadav is mired in a controversy related to the scam in which Rs15 lakh was recovered from outside the door of her official residence nearly 19 months ago.
On Sunday, the law ministry defended CPIO, saying the CJI input on Yadav was indeed confidential and could not be made public.
CPIO had told Shukla that his query, whether CBI approached CJI in connection with the scam, was “confidential and exempted from disclosure under section 8(1)(e) and (j) of the RTI Act”. “You have no right to access the said information,” CPIO said.The ministry, which has been working hard to introduce certain amendments in the RTI Act, which Congress president Sonia Gandhi has termed “landmark”, said the CJI input to law
minister Veerappa Moily on the issue was “in the nature of advice tendered by the cabinet” which is exempted from disclosure under the RTI Act.The ministry cited section 8(1)(i) of the Act in its defence. The section exempts “disclosure of cabinet papers, including records of deliberations of the council of ministers, secretaries and other officers”, provided “the decisions of the council of ministers, the reasons thereof, and the material on the basis of which the decisions were taken shall be made public after the decision has been taken and the matter is complete”.
Meanwhile, in a setback to the moves by a section in the government to put a lid on the scam, a special court in Chandigarh refused last Friday to accept the CBI plea for closing the case. Judge Darshan Singh asked CBI to probe the case further.
