New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday summoned CBI director, Delhi Police Commissioner and the Intelligence Bureau chief to examine issues of judicial corruption and alleged attempts to frame Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi in a sexual harassment case.
A three-judge bench led by Justice Arun Mishra called the heads of the three institutions at 12.30pm, saying the deliberations with them will take place inside the judges' chamber.
The bench will sit again at 3pm to issue further directions in the matter.
The court was hearing the matter, registered suo motu after allegations of sexual harassment against CJI Ranjan Gogoi came to light.
It was in receipt of an affidavit by lawyer Utsav Bains who claimed there was a conspiracy to falsely implicate the CJI in the harassment case since Justice Gogoi put an end to the 'cash for judgment' racket being run by 'fixer' Romesh Sharma.
On Tuesday, Bains was summoned for Wednesday when he showed up and adduced additional materials to corroborate his charges. Bains added that he also had CCTV grabs to show how he was approached with a bribe to help frame the CJI.
His affidavit named Naresh Goyal of Jet Airways too, claiming there was an attempt to fix a court judgment in his favour but the attempt was unsuccessful.
Justice Mishra described these alleged events as "disturbing", and said they should must get into the root of the issue.
"There serious issues about the independence of the system...that it can be remotely controlled. If this is true then it is very disturbing," said the judge.
Justice Mishra also lauded the CJI for paving the way of an in-house inquiry over the sexual harassment charges.
"This action has been taken by any CJI for the first time. No CJI had the courage to take such a step. In case there is a collusion of interested persons, this is serious. CJI wants to clean the system," he added.
The bench then asked Attorney General KK Venugopal to ensure presence of the CBI director, Delhi Police Commissioner and the IB chief at 12.30pm.
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