New Delhi: The ongoing controversy over Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s letter to Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde making serious allegations against Justice N.V. Ramana of the Supreme Court has taken a curious twist with a fresh special leave petition being filed in the apex court by a former chief justice of the Andhra Pradesh high court, seeking to quash a probe into his casual phone conversation.
Justice V. Eswaraiah, who became a judge of the Andhra Pradesh high court in 1999, retired as its acting chief justice in 2013. In September that year, the then UPA government at the Centre made him chairperson of the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) for a term of three years. He has been in the forefront of the backward classes movement in the state since then. The Backward Classes, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Minority Student Federation is one such endeavour, which got his blessings. He is also a prominent critic of the former chief minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, who he alleged, had scuttled the chances of two backward class advocates and two Scheduled Caste advocates from being appointed as high court judges.
In August 2017, Justice J. Chelameswar pointed out that Justice Ramana’s letter to the CJI on why these proposed appointees lacked merit appeared identical to the letter Naidu write to Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
In July, the Backward Classes, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Minority Student Federation filed a writ petition in the high court seeking a probe into the untimely death of the registrar-general (in-charge) of the high court, B. Rajasekhar, and of another employee due to COVID-19, and of 30 more employees being tested positive for the same. While Rajasekhar belonged to the Backward Classes, the other employee belonged to a Scheduled Tribe.
The Federation alleged that on May 8 this year, three judges were sworn-in at a small, closed air-conditioned court hall packed full of advocates, VIPs, family members and all judges on the bench, attenders behind their back, without even wearing masks or maintaining social distancing. The registrar-general, the petition alleged, was made to work up to 3 am to arrange the swearing-in ceremony. After the ceremony, the judges, staff and several advocates had tea in the judges lounge, the petition further alleged, and posed for photographs without wearing masks or maintaining social distance norms.
The petition alleges that Rajasekhar was put to tremendous work pressure by Chief Justice J.K. Maheshwari. Despite his illness, Rajasekhar had to come to the court to finalise the transfers of judicial officers, which could have been postponed considering his illness, it is further alleged. He collapsed in court on June 24, and died while on the way to hospital.
The high court registry, in its reply affidavit in the case, denied the allegations. In paragraph 13 of the affidavit, the high court registrar-general made allegations against the high court itself, wherein she criticised the September 4, 2019 recommendation of its then acting chief justice backing the Jagan government’s decision to make Justice Eswaraiah chairperson of the Andhra Pradesh Higher Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission despite the fact that the Supreme Court’s collegium had already recommended the appointment of a regular chief justice of the high court.
The same paragraph accuses Justice Eswaraiah of maligning the high court and wanting to support the state government under the cover of the BC Association, and blames the state government for “not happily accepting the verdicts of the high court given in various cases against” it.
The high court later agreed to withdraw this paragraph.
Andhra HC ordered a probe into phone conversation
During the pendency of this petition, a suspended district munsif magistrate of Andhra Pradesh, S. Ramakrishna, filed an intervention application in which he annexed the recording of a private conversation between Justice Eswaraiah and himself. The conversation was about many things, including the pending petition before the high court seeking a probe into Rajasekhar’s death, as well as the “misconduct” of a sitting judge of the Supreme Court. The sitting judge, the leaked conversation makes it clear, is Justice Ramana.
Justice Eswaraiah’s grievance is that the high court, without even issuing notice to him, proceeded to order an enquiry into the conversation on the basis that it disclosed a “conspiracy” to malign the chief justice of Andhra Pradesh, and a sitting Judge of the Supreme Court, and therefore, interpreted it as a plot against the judiciary. He also alleged that Ramakrishna defamed him by leaking the conversation.
Also Read: Andhra CM Jagan Declares War on Justice Ramana, Next-in-Line to be Chief Justice of India
Justice Eswaraiah contends that he had publicly spoken about the so-called “misconduct” of Justice Ramana and his “nexus” with the erstwhile government in the state led by Naidu. Secondly, the “misconduct” was the subject matter of an enquiry by the cabinet sub-committee regarding dubious property transactions for unlawful gain. This “conspiracy”, Justice Eswaraiah discloses, is the subject matter of a First Information Report, which names Dammalapati Srinivas, former additional advocate general, (who was later appointed as advocate general) and 12 other accused, including two daughters of Justice Ramana.
Justice Eswaraiah, therefore, has submitted that it is legitimate for him to seek any further information about the controversy which is already in the public domain from “anyone who might be privy to it”.
“Terming such a conversation to be some sort of a criminal conspiracy to destabilise the judiciary which needs an investigation is totally unwarranted”, he has claimed. The constitution of such an enquiry committee – led by former Supreme Court judge, Justice R.V. Raveendran – without notice to him, and without allowing the intervention of the suspended magistrate (with whom Justice Eswaraiah had the phone conversation, which was leaked) was against natural justice, he has submitted.
Dubious precedent cited by high court
Curiously, the high court, in its order setting up the inquiry into the leaked conversation, has relied as precedent on the Supreme Court setting up a similar commission (headed by Justice A.K. Patnaik) to unravel the “larger conspiracy” behind the sexual harassment allegations made by a Supreme Court employee against the then Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi.
Although this commission had submitted its report, the Supreme Court chose not to divulge it to the public, or hear the matter further, despite a clear order by the court on the judicial side to the registrar to list it for hearing. Therefore, to cite this as a precedent to suggest that it is also the solemn duty of the high court to unravel the truth, exposes the hypocrisy behind the decision.
The Supreme Court had dismissed concerns, while setting up the Patnaik commission, that parallel inquiries into the sexual harassment allegations against the sitting Chief Justice of India might not facilitate an independent probe. Expectedly, the in-house inquiry committee headed by Justices S.A. Bobde, Indira Banerjee and Indu Malhotra gave a clean chit to Chief Justice Gogoi, by dismissing the allegations against him, without sharing the report with the complainant. The reinstatement of the dismissed employee, who was the complainant in the case, showed that her allegations, despite the in-house committee’s findings, could well be true.
In his petition, Justice Eswaraiah wants the Supreme Court to examine whether the high court is justified in ordering an enquiry into a recorded private conversation between two individuals on their mobile phones even though the individuals are not parties to the proceedings before the high court in a pending case, and the conversation has no relevance to it. He has also sought to know whether the high court can order such an enquiry based on an intervention by a third party when it is not even allowed.
Justice Eswaraiah, therefore, has sought an interim stay on the high court’s order dated August 13 directing the enquiry into the contents of the pen drive leaking the conversation submitted to the court in Ramakrishna’s application. The outcome of this case may have implications on how the CJI decides Jagan’s letter to him against Justice Ramana.