New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to journalist Vijay Shekar and the Zee television channel, asking them to show cause why they should not be prosecuted for conducting a `cash-for-warrant' sting operation, in which an Ahmedabad magistrate issued warrants against the President, the then Chief Justice of India and two others.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justices D.K. Jain and V.S. Sirpurkar asked them to give their response in four weeks, saying "such mischief cannot be allowed to tarnish the image of the lower judiciary."

The Bench did not accept the petitioners' submission that the operation was conducted to expose `cash-for-warrant scams' in the lower judiciary. It said, "Invariably warrants are prepared by the court staff and magistrates in their heavy workload cannot be expected to go through every name mentioned in the warrant."

In the sting operation Mr. Vijay Shekar paid Rs. 40,000 to three Ahmedabad-based advocates, who, in turn, obtained the bailable warrants against President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the former Chief Justice of India V.N. Khare, Justice B.P. Singh of the Supreme Court and R.K. Jain, a senior lawyer (who died recently), on a fictitious complaint.

The court already quashed the warrants issued by magistrate M.S. Brahm Bhatt, holding that the complaint was "ex-facie fraud."

On Wednesday, Solicitor-General G. E. Vahanvati said the Central Bureau of Investigation, which was asked by the court to investigate the incident, could not get any information on similar episodes of warrants being issued for a price.

The CBI filed a charge sheet against the persons against whom it had collected evidence but the trial could not proceed as no public prosecutor was appointed.

Counsel for Gujarat said a committee appointed by the Gujarat High Court exonerated the magistrate and he was reinstated in service.

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