New Delhi: A Supreme Court Bench, headed by the Chief Justice of India was on Monday perplexed at how the contempt case against Congress President Rahul Gandhi got delinked from the Rafale review case and got listed on Friday. “We are little perplexed that the two cases have been segregated despite our decision to hear both together,” CJI Ranjan Gogoi said and put off the review case also, which will now come up with the contempt case on Friday. Finding no file of the contempt petition when the review petitions came up for consideration, the CJI asked the Supreme Court Bar Association chief Vikas Singh why the petition against Rahul is not there and much to his surprise he was told that the contempt petition is to come up on May 10.
The CJI was unhappy with the answer as his Bench had last Wednesday fixed both cases on Monday. The first case relates to the unconditional apology that the court is trying to extract from Rahul Gandhi and in the second case is connected with the review petition in Rafale case. “How is it that this review has come up today and the other matter on 10th, when there is an order saying that both the matters are to be heard together; it had to come up today,” the CJI said. He restrained himself from any other remark, but heads may roll in the court registry. The court’s decision has been flouted at a time when an inquiry has been ordered into a lawyer’s claim of a thriving racket of bench fixing.