SC hits out at attempts to malign judiciary

The Supreme Court on Thursday hit out at the "systematic" attempts being made to "malign" the institution of judiciary.

A three-judge bench presided over by Justice Arun Mishra, which reserved its order for 2 pm on Thursday on a lawyer's allegation of conspiracy to frame CJI Ranjan Gogoi in a "false" sexual harassment case, reiterated the outcome of its inquiry would not affect the proceedings on the ex staff's complaint.

"This country must know the truth. Time has come to tell the world that the Supreme Court cannot be run by money power or political power. The powerful think they can run this country. When somebody tries to clean up the system, or take action, he is killed or maligned," the bench said.

The bench, also comprising Justices R F Nariman and Deepak Gupta, said people write letters in a pending matter. People try to use money power to control the Institution.

The court also expressed its anguish on charges of "fixing".

"These things are floating in the air for quite some time. Things are so serious. We are in anguish. The way in which this Institution is treated for three four years, it would not survive," the bench said.

Without talking in details, the court asked whether truth has come out of last year's incident. In 2018, allegation of bribery was made against then CJI Dipak Misra in medical colleges scam case and impeachment motion was unsuccessfully moved against him.

"We will come and go but the Institution has to survive. Bench fixing has to go. Four and five persons are involved. We are worried. Don't invite our comments. The day has come to tell the rich and the powerful that you are playing with fire," the bench said.

The court's observations came as it took up a lawyer, Utsav Singh Bains' claims of conspiracy in the suo motu case registered on Saturday as a 'matter of great public importance touching upon the independence of judiciary' after the charges made by an ex-woman employees were published in a group of news websites.

After a brief hearing, the court reserved its orders as Attorney General K K Venugopal and SCBA president Rakesh Khanna contended that the lawyer cannot claim privileged communications in sharing details of the material in his possession.

On a plea by senior advocate Indira Jaising, the court once again clarified that its probe would not affect the inquiry ordered into the complaint by the ex-employee.

"You should not go into defence of the charges made and the pending inquiry on the complaint by the lower division clerk," Jaising said.

"Your apprehension is baseless. No inquiry is to be made on so called harassment (by this bench)," the court said.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta sought an SIT probe into the lawyer's claims.

"Somebody contacted him to frame...some middlemen, employees, fixers are involved, he has named some, that is very serious allegations. Some fixers are roaming," the court said.