New Delhi, April 24:The Supreme Court on Wednesday summoned CBI Director, Delhi Police Commissioner and Intelligence Bureau Director at 12.30 pm for a meeting in view of a claim made by a lawyer that there was a conspiracy to force CJI Ranjan Gogoi to resign.
The CBI Director, IB Director and Delhi Police chief are supposed to meet the judges in their chamber.
Further hearing on allegations of sexual harassment against CJI and issue of judicial independence will be held at 3 pm.
Decision was taken after a Bench of Justice Arun Mishra, Justice Rohinton F Nariman and Justice Deepak Gupta perused certain documents submitted by advocate Utsav Bains in a sealed cover.
Bains had claimed that there was a conspiracy to force CJI Ranjan Gogoi to resign by falsely implicating him a sexual harassment case.
The Bench refused to heed a suggestion from Attorney General KK Venugopal to also summon NIA chief.
The Bench didn’t allow senior advocate Indira Jaising to intervene in the matter.
“Don’t speak anything at this stage. You should be more concerned about the allegations in the affidavit. We are on a more serious issue,” Justice Mishra told her.
Amid raging controversy over unprecedented allegations of sexual harassment levelled by a dismissed Supreme Court employee against Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, an advocate had on Monday claimed that there was a conspiracy to force the CJI to resign by “framing him” in a false case of sexual harassment.
The sensational claim was made by advocate Lawyer Utsav Singh Bains in an affidavit filed in the case before the Supreme Court and said he was offered Rs 1.5 crore by one Ajay to represent a former top court woman employee and arrange a presser against the CJI at the Press Club of India in the National Capital.
He, however, did not disclose his source of information. “The Deponent will not share any names of the sources mentioned herein under any circumstances as these were privileged communications under the Advocates Act,” he said in his affidavit.
The Bench had on Tuesday asked Bains to appear before it on Wednesday and ordered security for him.
The top court had taken it up on Saturday as a matter of “great public importance touching upon the independence of judiciary”.
“The Deponent (Bains) wishes to bring to notice of the court a serious matter of a conspiracy to make the Chief Justice of India resign by framing him in a false case of sexual harassment,” he said in the affidavit.
Bains said he was shocked to hear the allegations and was willing to represent the complainant. “But when the said Ajay further narrated the entire sequence of events and facts of the case, the deponent was not convinced and found several loopholes in the said Ajay’s version of events,” the affidavit said.
The lawyer then sought an interaction with the complainant to verify the claims, it said, adding that the meeting was denied which gave rise to the suspicion.
“That, when the Deponent outright refused the said bribe of Rs 50 lakh offered by the said Ajay to frame the CJI, the said Ajay then increased the sum to Rs 1.5 crore to the Deponent following which the Deponent asked him to immediately leave his office,” the affidavit said.
“The Deponent was informed by reliable sources that certain ‘Fixers’, who claim to be engaged in illegally managing Judgments in exchange for cash are behind this plot as the CJI has taken decisive action to crack down on such fixers,” the affidavit claimed.
Bains, who has been appearing in cases, including for the victims and their kin in sexual harassment cases against jailed self-styled Godman Asaram and the witness protection matter, has also named some alleged “fixers” in his affidavit.
