Supreme Court refers plea on bribes taken in judges’ names to Constitution bench

The Supreme Court on Thursday referred to a five-judge Constitution bench a petition seeking court-monitored investigation into a criminal case that involved allegations of bribes being taken in the name of judges to obtain favourable orders.

In September, the Central Bureau of Investigation filed a First Information Report following which multiple raids were conducted on the accused. The allegation was that all the accused hatched a criminal conspiracy to obtain judicial orders from High Courts and the Supreme Court in favour of an organisation called the Prasad Education Trust. The Medical Council of India had denied permission to a medical college belonging to the trust. A middleman had assured the trust that permission would be granted to the college through the judiciary and money was obtained from the parties in the process. This led to the arrest of Odisha High Court judge IM Quddusi. He was later released on bail.

On Thursday morning, senior lawyer Dushyant Dave mentioned before the bench led by Justice J Chalameswar a petition filed by advocate Kamini Jaiswal seeking a court-monitored special investigation team to probe the matter, contending that since the case involves members of the higher judiciary, objectivity had to be ensured. The matter could have implications for judicial independence, Dave said.

The bench in its order in the afternoon decided to place the matter before a five-judge Constitution bench. “Having regard to the totality of the circumstances, we deem it appropriate that this matter be heard by the Constitution Bench of the first five judges in the order of seniority of this Court,” the order said.

The order mentioned that during the course of the hearing, the bench received a note from the Supreme Court registry with a xerox copy of proceedings issued by the Chief Justice of India Deepak Misra. “We are also duty-bound to place the developments that when the hearing of the matter was in progress, the Officer of the Registry placed a xerox copy of the proceedings purportedly issued by Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India, a copy of which is annexed to this Order,” the bench said. However, the order posted online did not have the annexed note.

The court also ordered the CBI to place before it in the next hearing on November 13 material gathered during the course of the investigation.

Meanwhile, a Constitution bench headed by Deepak Misra, which was hearing another matter, rose at noon and reassembled at 2.15 pm.