NEW DELHI: Terming the Lokpal’s decision to bring high court judges within its jurisdiction to entertain complaints against them as “very disturbing” and against the independence of judiciary, Supreme Court Thursday stayed the operation of the order and issued notice to the registrar general of Lokpal and the Centre, seeking their response.
A full bench of Lokpal, headed by its chairman and former apex court judge A M Khanwilkar, had passed the order while entertaining a complaint filed against a sitting HC judge. It had ruled that a judge of a high court comes within the sweep of Section 14(1)(f) of the Lokpal Act and that the ombudsman can proceed against a sitting HC judge. The apex court has now initiated suo motu case against the order. A bench of Justices B R Gavai, Surya Kant and Abhay S Oka said that something was very disturbing in the order passed by Lokpal and questioned its validity. Solicitor general Tushar Mehta said that an HC judge was never intended to be brought under the Lokpal.
HC judges can’t be considered mere statutory functionaries: SC
Senior advocate and Supreme Court Bar Association president Kapil Sibal submitted that the Lokpal’s order was fraught with danger and pleaded with the court to stay its operation.
The court thereafter passed a brief order issuing notice to the Centre, the complainant, and the registrar general of the Lokpal, seeking their response. It also restrained the complainant from disclosing the name of the HC judge and the contents of the complaint. The court observed that all HC judges are constitutional authorities and cannot be regarded as mere statutory functionaries as held by the Lokpal.
The Lokpal had passed the controversial order on Jan 27 on a complaint against a sitting judge of HC.
“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… it will be useful to advert to the definition of ‘judge’ in Section 19 of IPC as also the enactment of Anti-Corruption Laws (Amendment) Act, 1964 and re-enacted Section 21 with the third category of public servant, including sub-clause (iv) of clause (c) of Section 2 of the Act of 1988 defining expression public servant to mean any judge.
“In paragraph 35 of the majority view exposited by Justice Shetty in the case of K Veeraswamy vs UOI, it is plainly expounded that a judge of the superior court cannot therefore be excluded from the definition of public servant and would squarely fall within the purview of Prevention of Corruption Act. Applying the underlying principle and the logic as given in the reported decision, the expression ‘any person’ in Section 14(1)(f) of the Act must include a judge of the high court established by an Act of Parliament as well,” the order had said.