21 July 2014
AIADMK members disrupted the proceedings of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, demanding a probe on the allegations that its rival Party in Tamil Nadu had exerted undue influence on the central government to let a corrupt judge retain his position. Rajya Sabha was adjourned twice during its Question Hour because of this uproar.
In the centre of the uproar lies the blog of a former Chief Justice of the Madras High Court. In the blog Justice Markandey Katju alleges that in 2005 the DMK, the then ruling party and an ally of the Congress and its United Progressive Alliance (UPA), had exerted undue influence to allow a tainted judge to keep his job even after he was mentioned in several cases of corruption. He was even e elevated as an Additional Judge of the Madras High Court by the former DMK government. If these allegations are true then we can see how much influence a corrupt government can wield to corrupt the judiciary to have its own way in the due process of the law.
But again, here we have something more than meets the eye. The first question that comes to the mind is why is Justice Katju raising this issue now, almost after 9 years of the event. Why did he not raise this when he was the Chief Justice? His voice would have had higher weight then. In the light of these arguments, some people think that it is possible that this was ploy put up by Chairman of the Press Council to get the attention of the new central government.
Justice Katju’s motive becomes clearer when he goes on to say in his blog post that Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who was also CM during Katju’s tenure as chief justice of Madras High Court never, interfered with the judiciary. We know that Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was accused of hoarding billion of rupees worth of cash and gold.
Dr. Maitreyan, a member of the AIADMK, asked whether former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was seated in the House, was aware of the allegations against the judge and whether his ally DMK had put pressure on his government in the manner as stated by Justice Katju. We do not yet know Prime Minister Modi’s view on these issues. We know that both the ruling and the opposition parties are corrupt. There is no point in a new government going on witch hunting spree on its predecessor. This is because, nothing will happen in the end and bribery and corruption will prevail.