Jaipur, Dec 23: Rajasthan High Court has upheld constitutional validity of the procedure of in-house inquiry by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) to probe into the conduct of sitting judges, describing it as "a self-imposed discipline". The in-house procedure, proposed by a committee of five judges of Supreme Court and approved by various high courts, including Rajasthan, "may be troublesome to some minds but this price - a small price indeed - has to be paid by us if at all, we really mean transparency in the judiciary," a division bench of the court, consisting of acting Chief Justice M R Calla and Justice Prakash Tatia held last week. Dismissing a public interest litigation, filed by an advocate M P Goswami, asserting that the CJI has no authority to constitute any committee to inquire into conduct of a judge who can only be removed by the process provided under Article 124 (clause 6) of the Constitution, the court held that the in-house probe procedure was a self-imposed discipline and any committee appointed by the CJI was only a fact finding panel with "an endeavour to unearth the truth".
Deputy registrar (record) of the High Court, Govind Kalwani, had allegedly sought sexual favour for himself and Madan from a lady doctor, Sunita Malviya, running a health clinic here, in return of judicial favour in a case pending against her.
Bureau Report