The Supreme Court on Friday slapped a fine of Rs 25 lakh on an NGO, Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CJAR), that sought a probe into role of judges on an allegation made by a middleman that judicial decisions were influenced in a medical admission case. The money will be paid into an advocate welfare fund maintained by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA). Noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan is convener of CJAR while his father Shanti Bhushan and advocated Kamini Jaiswal are its patrons.
The CBI had arrested the middleman, Bishwanath Agarwal, and retired High Court judge of Orissa HC IM Qudussi. The agency field an FIR claiming conspiracy between the middleman, the owners of the medical college at Lucknow, and Qudussi for swinging the judicial decision in favour of the college.
On September 18 this year, a three-judge Supreme Court Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra dealt with the case relating to the college run by Prasad Education Trust and ordered that while no admissions were possible this year, the Medical Council of India (MCI) may re-assess the infrastructure of the college for grant of permission for the 2018-19 academic year. Incidentally, the college in question had been barred both by the MCI and the Central Government from taking any admission for the next two years.
The CJAR petition sought a special investigation team (SIT) to take over the probe from CBI and its monitoring by a retired Supreme Court judge. The petition argued by advocate Prashant Bhushan claimed that CBI cannot be trusted to carry out a fair probe against judges as it might play in the hands of its political bosses. He claimed the setting up a SIT as necessary in order to preserve the integrity, independence and dignity of judiciary.
A bench of Justices RK Agarwal, Arun Mishra and AM Khanwilkar, turned down the petition and ordered the CJAR to pay a cost of Rs 25 lakh.
Coming out of the courtroom, Prashant Bushan said, “the imposition of such heavy cost on a petitioner who approached the court to protect the integrity and independence of judiciary is an indication of how this case relating to the medical college bribery scam has unnerved and unsettled some of the judges.”
A week back, a petition containing similar prayers filed by advocate Kamini Jaiswal, also a member of CJAR, was dismissed by the same Bench where it found the allegations unsubstantiated.