The Hindu : National : Warrants against President, CJI quashed

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Wednesday, Apr 28, 2004

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National

Warrants against President, CJI quashed

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 27. The Supreme Court today quashed the bailable arrest warrants issued by a Ahmedabad Magistrate against the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the Chief Justice of India, V.N. Khare, and two others on January 15 holding that the complaint was "ex-facie fraud".

A three-member Bench, comprising Justice N. Santosh Hegde, Justice S.B. Sinha and Justice S.H. Kapadia, expressed shock and anguish at the manner in which the Magistrate, M.S. Brahm Bhatt, issued the warrants without even examining the complainant. The Bench said it proposed to proceed against the accused, including the Magistrate independently, in the "cash for warrants scam."

The warrants, which were also issued against the Supreme Court Judge, B.P. Singh, and the former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, R.K. Jain, were obtained in a sting operation by a television journalist, Vijay Shekhar, who paid Rs. 40,000 to three Ahmedabad-based advocates, who in turn obtained bailable warrants on the basis of a fictitious complaint.

The Bench asked the CBI to file within 10 weeks a report indicating whether there had been similar incidents in the past in the same court. "We would like to know the magnitude of the problem," the Bench said and observed "all possible efforts should be made by all concerned to stop recurrence of these types of incidents."

The Bench asked the Gujarat High Court to send periodic reports about its administrative proceedings against the suspended Magistrate. Further, the CBI was directed to take its investigation into the scam to its logical conclusion by filing charge-sheet against the persons against whom it had collected evidence.

Since the complaint being a fraud, it vitiated all proceedings before a court of law. "No judgment of any court could stand the legal test if it is obtained by fraud,'' the Bench noted.

When the Court sought suggestions to prevent recurrence of such incidents, the Solicitor-General, Kirit N. Raval, appearing for the CBI submitted that the Magistrates had been overburdened with work as they dealt with all kinds of work. The Court fixed July 20 as the next date of hearing.

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