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Retired Judge Ishrat Masroor Quddusi. (Express Photo)
The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its order on a petition by the NGO, Citizens for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CJAR), demanding an SIT probe into a corruption case registered by the CBI against former Orissa High Court judge I M Quddusi in connection with a medical college scam.
A bench of Justices R K Agrawal, A M Khanwilkar and Arun Mishra reserved its order for Friday after hearing CJAR counsel Prashant Bhushan and Attorney-General K K Venugopal.
Hearing of the case before a five-judge Constitution bench on November 10 had witnessed acrimonious scenes with Bhushan raising charges against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in the matter and storming out of the court.
Addressing the three-judge bench headed by Justice Agrawal which heard the matter on Monday, Bhushan emphasised that he was “not saying that any judge of this court will be involved in this”. The counsel said he only wanted “to protect the independence of the judiciary” as “such an investigation if left to the unfettered control of the CBI or police can be used to harass judges”.
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He said only an SIT probe headed by a retired CJI would be able to establish if the allegations in the FIR were correct.
Both Justices Agrawal and Mishra said the matter had been dealt with in the court’s November 14 judgment when an identical petition filed by advocate Kamini Jaiswal was dismissed.
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