CJI allegations: CBI, IB chiefs called to SC

The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought the personal presence of the CBI director, the Delhi Police commissioner and the IB chief at 12.30 pm after going through a lawyer's affidavit alleging conspiracy to frame CJI Ranjan Gogoi in a "false" sexual harassment case.

"It is something very serious and disturbing with regard to independence of judiciary," a bench of Justices Arun Mishra, R F Nariman and Deepak Gupta said after going through the materials furnished by an advocate, Utsav Singh Bains.

During the brief hearing, Bains gave a sealed envelope which contained what the court said "something very serious".

He said the independence of judiciary is under serious threat. There are some sensitive information and evidence which must be collected through the judicial inquiry.

Attorney General K K Venugopal objected to some portion of the affidavit filed by Bains, wherein he alleged some fixers and former judges were involved in seeking favourable orders.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted elements of truth must be examined. Let an SIT be set up, truth must come out, he said.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising sought to intervene into the matter, questioning parallel proceedings but the court asked her not to speak for now.

The court decided to seek presence of top officers and resume hearing at 3 pm.

Notably, the court had on Tuesday asked Bains to produce materials to substantiate his allegations that a fixer and front man of designated terrorist Dawood Ibrahim, Romesh Sharma and a corporate giant ganged up to frame CJI in a false case of sexual harassment.

Taking up the suo motu matter registered on Saturday after sensational charge by an ex-woman employee against the CJI got published on some news websites, the court had issued notice to Bains who had filed an affidavit, alleging he was offered a bribe of Rs 1.5 crore to hold a press conference in this regard.

In his affidavit, Bains claimed he was”privy to certain events involving the said corporate figure and will submit in a sealed cover the events and list of the involved persons to this court should it so direct him.”

In a separate decision, a committee of senior most judge, Justice S A Bobde, Justice N V Ramana and Justice Indira Banerjee was formed to conduct in-house inquiry into charges made by an ex woman employee against the CJI.