An activist on Friday withdrew his petition seeking contempt of court proceedings against senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley for his article in reference to the Ishrat Jahan encounter case after the High Court expressed its reservations. The petition by S H Iyer,an advocate and activist from Jan Sangharsh Manch,had sought contempt proceedings against Jaitley for writing a blog on his website castigating the CBI for its probe in the case. Iyers counsel Mukul Sinha withdrew the petition after a division bench of HC comprising Justices Jayant Patel and Z K Saiyed said the blog was not contemptuous and that only the regular bench which is supervising the Ishrat case investigation could hear the petition. Jaitley has written the blog titled Should CBI Uncover the IB on his website - www.arunjaitley.com. In the article,he wrote that CBI was functioning as a tool in the hands of the Central government,which damaged its credibility. The BJP leader,himself a senior lawyer,also wrote that myopic political regime in Delhi was destroying the institutions only in order to harass the Gujarat government and the cost of this was to be paid by the Intelligence Bureau. Earlier,CBI had questioned a senior IB officer in the case. Sinha argued that since the investigation of the Ishrat Jahan case was handed over to CBI by the HC,Jaitley,by castigating CBI in the case,had not only tarnished the reputation of CBI but also scandalised and lowered the authority of HC. The court,however,was not impressed. In democracy,everybody has a right to say and know right things. But courts are not swayed by it, Justice Patel said while speaking on behalf of the bench. At the most,the article may have damaged the credibility of Mr (Satish) Verma or CBI,but not of the court, he observed. Subsequently,the court observed that entertaining the petition might obstruct the proceedings before the regular bench (comprising Justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari),which was supervising the Ishrat Jahan encounter probe. Judicial propriety demands that this matter should be heard by the regular bench, Justice Patel observed. The bench then left it to Sinha if he wanted to withdraw the petition. Sinha,accordingly,chose to withdraw the petition,with an option to approach the regular bench hearing the Ishrat case. On Verma,the court observed it was up to CBI if they wanted him in the investigation or not. If they dont want him,the matter ends.
