No minister spoke to High Court judge: CJI

The controversy over a Union Minister allegedly trying to influence a judge of the Madras High Court in a pending criminal case has taken a strange turn with Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan saying that no politician had spoken to the justice, contrary to what the judge had said in the open court.

The Supreme Court Chief Justice, in a published newspaper interview, was quoted as having said that no minister had called Justice R Reghupathy and that he had come to know that a lawyer had claimed that some minister was interested in the case.

Justice Balakrishnan's comments give a new turn to the controversy triggered by Justice Reghupathy's comments in the open court last week that a Union Minister had tried to influence him to grant anticipatory bail to the two accused.

The judge had sought  an unconditional apology from the lawyer or otherwise  he would write to the Prime Minister on the "pressure exerted" on him.

The CJI had also taken serious note of the incident and had described such an incident as an interference in the judiciary.

The judge's comments set off a controversy with political demanding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh identify the minister and sack him.

The legal fraternity with leading jurists like Soli Sorabjee demanding that the judge name the minister as it amounted to contempt of court.

AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha named Communications Minister A Raja as the one who had called the judge to intervene on behalf of a father-son duo arrested in a fake marks case filed by the CBI in Puducherry and seeking bail for them from the High Court judge.

The minister had repeatedly rejected the charges against him saying they were baseless and politically motivated.

In the interview to a newspaper, Justice Balakrishnan said no minister had called the judge and that it was only a lawyer who had claimed some minister was interested in the case.

"Then the judge told the lawyer that he was not interested in knowing if any minister was interested or not. The judge has written a letter to the Chief Justice (of the Madras High Court) and he is sending it to me," the CJI told the newspaper.