Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee (in pic) who stunned the court on Tuesday by saying that he was offered bribe, has refused to elaborate. When reporters tried to meet him on Wednesday to get details, Justice Mukherjee sent a word through his staff that he has nothing more to say.
Asked why Justice Mukherjee didn’t get the person, who visited his house and offered the bribe, arrested, the staff said that the Chief Justice recused from hearing the case.
On July 5, 2016 the bench comprising the Justices Mukherjee and Ravi Malimath said: “Since one of us (S K Mukherjee, Chief Justice) is not inclined to take up this matter on personal grounds, let this matter go out of the list.”
Justice Mukherjee made the startling disclosure in the court hall while hearing the Umrah Developers vs Government of Karnataka case that a Bengali- speaking person visited his house and offered him bribe to write a favourable judgement. Justice Mukherjee also showed the business card of the person who had met him. When the senior counsel asked for the visiting card, the Chief Justice told him to get a photocopy of it from his secretary.
Advocate Rueben Jacob told Deccan Herald that he had called his client Umrah Developers to know if they made any attempts to bribe the Chief Justice. “My client denied that any person from company had visited the CJ's house,’’ the advocate said adding that he could not get a photocopy of the visiting card on Tuesday. “I will be able to get the details only on Friday,’’ he said. The review petition is about Umrah Developers seeking interest on the principal amount paid to it by the Revenue Department. The company had purchased land from the Revenue Department through auction and the same was later acquired by the BDA to form Kempegowda Layout.
