NEW DELHI: Supreme Court Friday witnessed a sharp exchange of words between a bench headed by Justice Abhay S Oka and senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani after the lawyer alleged that Chhattisgarh govt’s plea against former IAS officer Anil Tuteja was not being heard because of adjournments. The bench passed an order asking him to move the CJI for transfer of the case to another bench and reminded him that the govt itself had sought deferment of hearing on a few occasions.
At the outset of hearing, Jethmalani told the bench that the state wanted custodial interrogation and pressed for an early hearing. The court, however, said the main case was still pending and hearing on vacation of interim order could be heard with it as the accused had already been directed to cooperate with the probe. Senior advocates Gopal Sankaranarayanan and Meenakshi Arora also briefed the court that the accused were appearing on every date.
Jethmalani thereafter questioned the court’s jurisdiction in granting interim relief and said “this is not the province of the court”. Not accepting his submission, the bench said the court was not “powerless” to grant relief. “If you are making grievances against the bench, then you can go before the Chief Justice. This is not the way to behave,” the bench said.
Countering Jethmalani’s submission that the accused had sought adjournments, Sankaranarayanan challenged him to spell out the dates when hearing was deferred due to the accused and told the bench that the state itself had taken adjournment three times in the case.
Jethmalani clarified that he was not making any allegation against the bench. “Your lordships are misunderstanding what I said. I did not say anything about the bench. I pointed out the conduct of the parties,” he added.
The court, however, went on to pass an order allowing the state to ask the CJI to transfer the case to another bench. “If we start adopting this approach – which advocate has taken adjournment how many times – it will be impossible for us to function,” the bench told Jethmalani.
A bench headed by Justice Oka had on April 15 granted Tuteja bail in a money laundering case arising out of the Chhattisgarh liquor scam, noting that Tuteja had been in custody for over a year and charges had not been framed against him and more than 30 prosecution witnesses were to be examined in the case.
Based on allegations of ED’s “high handedness” and “inhuman conduct” in interrogating a person for almost 15 hours which went beyond midnight, SC had in Jan pulled up the agency and expressed concern over its approach in conducting probe.
ED denied the charge and accused Tuteja of influencing witnesses with the help of Chhattisgarh Police and the ex-advocate general under the previous Congress govt. It also produced documents in support of its charge in a sealed envelope, which is said to have led to the transfer of an important judicial officer outside the state.
