Supreme Court says damage done by judges bribery pleas; reprimands Bhushan, Jaiswal but spares contempt notices

After days of high drama, the Supreme Court today decided to restore the glory of the institution even as it reprimanded lawyers Kamini Jaiswal and Prashant Bhushan for the petition seeking SIT probe in the medical college bribery case.

A three-judge bench, comprising Justices A K Agarwal, A M Khanwilkar and Arun Mishra, dismissed the plea filed by Kamini Jaiswal and held that there cannot be an FIR against a judge.

"We are not above law but due process must be followed. No FIR can be lodged against a judge by judicial order," the Supreme Court said. The "petition brings disrepute to this court, and it was a contemptuous act", the court observed.

Making caustic observations on Prashant Bhushan, the court said that the lawyer's conduct was unethical and amounted to "forum shopping" but did not initiate contempt proceedings against him.

The Supreme Court said that allegations against the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra, were baseless and there was no need to seek his recusal. It observed that the CJI was competent to assign the matter to this Bench and said that seeking recusal of Justice A M Khanwilkar was an attempt at "forum shopping".

The Supreme Court said that damage has been done to the institution and unnecessary doubts raised on the institution for no reason. It observed that proper verification of facts was not done.

The court said that it was not initiating contempt proceedings against Bhushan or Kamini Jaiswal in the hope and expectation that the bar and bench shall stand united. The court ruled that no one was above law, not even the judges or the Supreme Court.

Jaiswal's petition had claimed that allegations of bribery were levelled for securing settlement of cases relating to medical colleges in which a retired Orissa High Court judge, Ishrat Masroor Quddusi, is also an accused.

JUDGE VS JUDGE

A bench of Justices J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer ordered on November 9 that the plea be heard by a five-judge Constitution bench of the senior-most judges of the apex court.

However, on November 10, in an unprecedented hearing, a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra ruled that "no judge can take up a matter on his own, unless allocated by the Chief Justice of India, as he is the master of the roster".

The CJI-led bench over-ruled the order of Justice Chelameswar directing a Constitution bench hearing, saying, "If any such order has been passed by any bench that cannot hold the field as that will be running counter to the order passed by the Constitution bench."

The hearing on November 10 brought the tussle within top judiciary to the fore with the Constitution bench overturning the order of a two-judge bench to set up a larger bench to hear the graft case allegedly involving judges.

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