New Delhi, Feb 23: Expressing serious concern over corruption is lower courts, the Supreme Court today said there was complete nexus between the magistrate and lawyers in the issuance of warrants against the President and the Chief Justice of India in justice on sale case exposed by Zee News. Chief Justice V N Khare also sought more administrative powers to effectively deal with the malady.
The Chief Justice expressed the concern after perusing the investigation report by the CBI in the `cash for warrants` case, involving an Ahmedabad metropolitan magistrate and three local lawyers.
The CBI report, which was presented to the court by solicitor general Kirit Raval was in response to the court direction on Monday last during the resumed hearing of a public interest litigation (PIL) by Zee News journalist Vijay Shekhar.
Shekhar alleged that Meghani Nagar metropolitan magistrate M S Brahmbhatt had issued bailable warrants against the President of India, Chief Justice of India, a sitting judge of the apex court and a senior lawyer on alleged payment of Rs 40,000 through three local lawyers.
The Chief Justice sought administrative powers under the Judges Enquiry Act to shatter the nexus.
The court regretted that corrupt practices were going on in district courts with the connivance of judicial officers and criminals were being allowed in black coats to roam around freely.
The court said it was high time that remedial measures were taken to effectively deal with such corrupt practices and added that all this was happening because of lack of effective supervision by the respective high courts over the district courts under their control.
The court agreed to a suggestion of Raval and senior counsel Harish Salve that there should be some kind of in-house vigilance mechanism to deal with the corrupt judicial officers.
``I am going to convene an urgent meeting of the Chief Justices of high courts to discuss the malady and find out solutions,`` the Chief Justice observed.
The court was also of the view that the present case should be transferred to Delhi for trial to secure justice. It granted four weeks time to the CBI to finalise its investigation and directed listing of the PIL on March 8 for further hearing.
The court also granted time till March 12 to the Gujarat Police to complete its investigation in the incident relating to assault on mediapersons in Ahmedabad covering the incident.
The court also gave liberty to the Gujarat Police to take further remand, if necessary, of the four out of five lawyers arrested in the case and released on bail after one day. Bureau Report