Supreme Court: The 3-judge bench of RK Agarwal, Arun Mishra and AM Khanwilkar, JJ reserved verdict on the petition filed by Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CJAR) wherin it was alleged that attempts were made to bribe some Supreme Court Judges in the matters relating to Medical admission scam.
Earlier, the same bench had dismissed the petition filed by advocate Kamini Jaiswal stating that there was no question of registering any FIR against any sitting Judge of the High Court or of this Court as it is not permissible as per the law laid down by a 5-judge Constitution Bench in K. Veeraswami v. Union of India, (1991) 3 SCC 655 ,wherein this Court observed that in order to ensure the independence of the judiciary the apprehension that the Executive being largest litigant, it is likely to misuse the power to prosecute the Judges.
The bench was formed after the Court of CJI witnessed huge ruckus after, 09.11.2017, a 2-judge bench of J Chelameswar and S. Abdul Nazeer, JJ had said that the petition filed by Kamini Jaiswal be heard by the Constitution Bench of the first five Judges.
On 10.11.2017, Dr. AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, JJ, in the present case, ordered that the matter be placed before the Chief Justice for passing appropriate orders for listing this matter. When the CJI took note of the issue, he, along with 4 other judges, recalled the 2-judge bench order in Kamini Jaiswal matter that had placed the matter before a Constitution bench of the first five judges of the Supreme Court. The 5-judge bench said:
“neither a two-Judge Bench nor a three-Judge Bench can allocate the matter to themselves or direct the composition for constitution of a Bench.”
The order will be pronounced on 01.12.2017. [Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms v. Union of India, Writ Petition (Crl) No. 169/2017, order dated 27.11.2017]
