The Supreme Court is set to pronounce its judgement on Monday on 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 munsiff-magistrate, about a sitting top court's judge and then chief justice.
A bench presided over by Justice Ashok Bhushan would deliver the judgement on April 12.
The court had earlier indicated it would consider the contention by the former judge that the High Court's order has to be set aside as serious observations were made without issuing a notice or hearing him.
Justice Eswaraiah challenged the validity of the August 13, 2020 order by the High Court which directed an enquiry into a conversation into "conspiracy".
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for Justice Eswaraiah, had contended that when the HC was hearing a case relating to Covid issues, the district magistrate filed an intervention application in which he annexed a pen drive and later leaked the conversation to the media.
"There is no criminal conspiracy in the conversation. Even if one goes through the transcript filed by the district magistrate there is nothing to show that a crime has been committed," Bhushan had said.
"If an inquiry is to be conducted then a complete enquiry must be conducted into the transactions also," he added.
In his special leave petition, the 69-year-old retired judge and chairman of Andhra Pradesh State Higher Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission contended that the HC "erred" in ordering the enquiry on the basis of an unverified pen-drive to conclude a plot was hatched against judges.
He claimed he had openly exposed various improper acts of the sitting judge of the Supreme Court in various press conferences in the past, which he considered against judicial propriety and a misuse of power, such as his close proximity to the former Chief Minister N Chandra Babu Naidu.
(Published 11 April 2021, 13:42 IST)
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