Centre makes new list of judges to head probe panel

The Law Ministry and Home Ministry are considering three new names which will be finalised by Law Minister Kapil Sibal.

“The refusal could be because the judges who so far have been approached are treading cautiously for reasons best known to them,” said a senior Home Ministry official.

Ahead of announcing the setting up of the judicial commission, Home Ministry officials were of the view that a judge should be finalised before announcing it. However, they were prevailed over by the Law Ministry led by Sibal who assured that it will not be difficult to find a judge to head the panel. It was only after this suggestion that Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde was also taken into confidence and officials were asked to draft the cabinet note, said sources.

They also said that since the time of the announcement, the government had approached nearly a dozen retired judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts but most of them turned down the proposal. Two judges first agreed, but later backed out.

Government sources told The Indian Express that a former chief justice of Kerala was first approached by the Law Ministry who agreed to head the panel but later expressed unwillingness to be part of it citing personal reasons. Then the law ministry suggested the name of a former Supreme Court judge who retired in 2012. He also refused to be part of the panel.

Officials, however, maintain that a few names have been shortlisted and they will be made public shortly after a discussion between the officials of the Law and Home ministries.

The judicial panel has also been asked to look into the alleged interception of phone calls of Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and access of call detail records of Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley.

The Union Cabinet has fixed a three-month deadline for the judicial commission to submit its report. However, further delay will mean that the commission’s validity can be challenged with the coming Lok Sabha polls two sets of tapes released by web portals Cobrapost and Gulail have claimed that purported conversations between August and September 2009 refer to a “Saheb”, which the portals identified as Modi, at whose behest the snooping of a Bangalore woman architect was allegedly carried out.

The tapes claimed by the two portals purportedly established that the snooping conducted by Gujarat Police “went beyond the boundaries of the state”.

The tapes purportedly revealed that the Gujarat Police even tried to tap her phone in Bangalore, but were denied permission by the then BJP government in Karnataka.