Inquiry reveals involvement of judicial officer in false case

A police inquiry ordered by the Madras High Court has revealed the “active” involvement of a serving judicial officer and the passive involvement of just a few advocates and others in submitting a writ of quo warranto petition final yr, accusing the then Registrar (Vigilance) R. Poornima of not having handed even Class XII and getting it revealed in newspapers, even earlier than the case could possibly be listed for admission.

Justices P.N. Prakash and R. Pongiappan expressed shock over the inquiry report and directed Registrar General P. Dhanabal to put the inquiry report submitted by G. Nagajothi, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Central Crime Branch, earlier than Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee for initiating applicable motion in opposition to the people involved.

The judges, nonetheless, refused to make the report public for now.

The Division Bench additionally held that the police inquiry had led to the unearthing of adequate materials to border costs in opposition to two advocates B. Sathish Kumar, 37, and U. Vasudevan, 53, of Chennai, underneath the Contempt of Courts Act of 1971.

The judges, on Friday, requested each the attorneys, who appeared just about, in the event that they needed to plead responsible of the fees framed in opposition to them.

When each the advocates pleaded not responsible, the judges recorded their submissions and granted them time until June 18 to file extra affidavits in help of their defence. The court docket additionally directed the High Court Registry to ahead their order, framing costs, to the counsel for the 2 advocates via e-mail. The court docket additionally stated the involvement of the judicial officer had come to gentle solely as a result of of particular powers conferred on the police.

Authoring the order, Justice Prakash wrote: “This court had to clothe Ms. Nagajothi IPS. with the powers under Chapter XII of the Code of Criminal Procedure, save the power to arrest, in order to protect the judiciary from crumbling like a pack of cards, inasmuch as, we, prima facie, found that Sathish Kumar and Vasudevan were not alone in their destructive adventure but had patrons within the judicial system.”

“If the judicial system falls, one pillar of the democracy falls with it and therefore, extraordinary situations call for extraordinary remedies. Having found something seriously amiss, the High Court cannot afford to throw up its hands and plead inability to bring the culprits to justice. If not for the powers given to Ms. Nagajothi, it would have been nigh impossible for her to effect seizures of materials from various places which disclose the connivance of some persons within the walls of judiciary,” he wrote.

The court docket additionally stated that submitting of the false case in opposition to the then Registrar (Vigilance), who had been taking stringent motion in opposition to complaints of corruption in opposition to the judicial officers and getting it broadly publicised in the media, calls for invocation of the cost of scandalising the High Court and thereby bringing the administration of justice into disrepute in the eyes of the general public.

It additionally amounted to interfering with the administration of justice, the opposite cost learn.

On October 12, 2020, the then Chief Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy had dismissed the writ petition filed in opposition to Ms. Poornima, and initiated suo motu contempt of proceedings in opposition to the petitioner, Mr. Sathish Kumar, apart from imposing a value of ₹5 lakh on him. Subsequently, the court docket got here to know of the involvement of Vasudevan too and therefore a Bench led by Justice Prakash had ordered a police inquiry on March 10, 2021.