SC allows plea by ex-Andhra Pradesh High Court judge against probe into secretly recorded talks

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed a plea by former judge V Eswaraiah against the Andhra Pradesh High Court's directions to conduct an enquiry into his secretly recorded conversation with a suspended district munsif magistrate on an alleged "conspiracy against the judiciary".

A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and R Subhash Reddy noted that Eswaraiah himself has admitted the conversation of July 20, 2020 in an affidavit filed before the top court.

Thus, "We see no reason to allow to continue the enquiry by former SC judge, Justice R V Raveendran as directed by the High Court," the bench said in its judgement.

"Authenticity and genuineness of the transcript having been admitted, we are of the view that the direction by the High Court calling for report from Justice Raveendran need not be allowed to continue," the bench added.

The court, however, said if the High Court intended to refer to the transcript, it can do so after giving Justice Eswaraiah an opportunity to file his response.

On August 13, 2020, the order for a probe was passed on an application during the hearing of a PIL related to the implementation of Covid-19 guidelines in the High Court.

In his plea, Justice Eswaraiah led by advocate Prashant Bhushan contended a private conversation between him and S Ramakrishna, a suspended Munsif could not have been a subject matter of a writ petition before the High Court, which ordered the probe without issuing a notice to him in violation of the principle of natural justice.

The 69-year-old retired judge and chairman of Andhra Pradesh State Higher Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission contended that if one went through the transcript, there was nothing to show that a crime has been committed.