Supreme Court to hear on March 18 suo motu proceeding initiated over Lokpal’s order-OxBig News Network

The Supreme Court will on Tuesday take up a suo motu proceeding against the Lokpal’s order asserting its power to investigate complaints of corruption against sitting high court judges.

The matter is listed before a three-judge Bench of Justice BR Gavai, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Abhay S Oka, which had on February 20 stayed the Lokpal’s January 27 order.

Describing the Lokpal’s order as “disturbing”, the Bench had also issued notice to the Centre, the Lokpal office and the complainant.

Three weeks after the Lokpal held that it has power to investigate complaints of corruption against sitting high court judges, the Supreme Court had on February 19 taken suo motu cognisance of the contentious issue.

“We make it amply clear that by this order we have decided a singular issue finally—as to whether the judges of the high court established by an Act of Parliament come within the ambit of Section 14 of the Act of 2013, in the affirmative. No more and no less. In that, we have not looked into or examined the merits of the allegations at all,” a Lokpal Bench led by Justice AM Khanwilkar had said in its January 27 order.

However, without expressing any opinion on the merits of the case, the Lokpal had forwarded the complaint against the high court judge to the Chief Justice of India for his guidance.

A high court judge would qualify as a person in a body established by an Act of Parliament within the sweep of Section 14(1)(f) of the Lokpal Act and since the high court in question was created for a newly formed State by an Act of the Parliament, it would come within Section 14(1)(4), the Lokpal had said.

“It will be too naive to argue that a Judge of a High Court will not come within the ambit of expression “any person” in clause (f) of Section 14(1) of the Act of 2013,” the Lokpal had said, while deciding a complaint accusing a high court judge of influencing an Additional District Judge and another High Court Judge to favour a private company in a case. The private company was earlier a client of the High Court Judge in question when he was an advocate.

Earlier, the Lokpal had ruled that it didn’t have jurisdiction over the Chief Justice of India or a Supreme Court Judge as the Supreme Court was not a body established by an Act of Parliament.