13 yrs on,Gujral,Justice Verma spar over CJI appointment

Verma,in turn,has made his four-page correspondence with Gujral in 1998 public,wherein he takes up seven charges against his successor,Justice M M Punchi,and ends up saying that he should be appointed “in the absence of any established procedure to deal with such a situation”.

Justice Verma told The Indian Express,“When I met Mr Gujral,it was he who was under political pressure,as he told me himself,to appoint Punchi.” Justice Verma believes the pressure came from a close relative in Gujaral’s daughter-in-law’s family,who,under the influence of the BJP,was keen to see Justice Punchi in the chair. Justice Verma said,“It was I K Gujral who felt compelled to appoint Punchi and we had to go ahead and do it,as the move to collect signatures from MPs was stalled because of political compulsions and as such there was nothing material to charge Justice Punchi with.”

Of the seven allegations against Justice Punchi,there are two that Verma discussed in his letter to Gujral. One was about giving an opinion in the SC,whose decision had an impact on a property title in Chandigarh of his son and daughter-in-law. While Verma raises the propriety of hearing the case,he notes that a single Judge cannot be held accountable for the judgment of a bench. The second charge against Justice Punchi was his allotment of two plots to his minor daughters,but both titles were cancelled.