New Delhi, January 13: Senior counsel Prashant Bhushan said Thursday there “is no occasion or cause” for him to accept the Supreme Court’s suggestion that he apologise for calling Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia corrupt, referring to the time when the judge was on the forest bench deciding on a case of mining major Vedanta.
He turned down the suggestion that he should offer an apology along with an explanation giving the context in which he had described corrupt the presence of Justice Kapadia (before he became chief justice) on the forest bench that decided Niyamgiri mining lease issue in favour of Sterlite Industries, a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources. Bhushan had described this as other ways in which judicial corruption manifests itself.
Bhushan told the court that he had said whatever he had to say in his two-page statement submitted Thursday and would go no further.
He however clarified that he did not mean that there were any pecuniary gains to Justice Kapadia by this order of the forest bench in favour of Sterlite industries.
“It is wrong and most unfortunate that my remarks appear to have been misconstrued by some as imputation of financial corruption. Justice Kapadia is widely perceived to be a judge of absolute financial integrity and I fully share that perception,” Bhushan said in his statement.
“This is the limit I can go and will not go any further,” said senior counsel Ram Jethmalani appearing for Prashant Bhushan. He said that he will not even advise his client to tender any apology.
“I have made a statement explaining that my remarks about Justice Kapadia were not meant to impute financial corruption or lack of integrity to him and that I have great regard for his integrity and character,” Bhushan told IANS.
“However, there is no occasion or cause for any apology on this issue.
“There is also no question of any apology on my remarks about half of the previous 16-17 (Supreme Court) chief justices being corrupt, which was my honest perception and in any case, also substantially true,” Bhushan added.
The apex court bench of Justice Altamas Kabir, Justice Cyriac Joseph and Justice H.L. Dattu said it was “not exacting an apology” but “making an offer”. “There is no coercion,” it said, when Jethmalani said that taking recourse to the “law of contempt for extracting an apology may not be good”.
After Bhushan declined to offer an apology, the court in its order said that the statement by Bhushan was not acceptable to it and it would hear the matter on merits. However, the court said this would not prevent him from furnishing any further affidavit.
The apex court is hearing a contempt petition against Bhushan for describing as corrupt the presence of Justice Kapadia on the bench that decided on the lease issue.
The interview carried on Sep 5, 2009 issue of Tehalka magazine said: “Justice Kapadia said it’s publicly listed (company) because he had shares in it and yet he passed an order in favour of Sterlite! There is a law against judges hearing cases where there is a conflict of interest, but they just bypass it and you can’t complain because that would be contempt”.
Appearing for Tehalka magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Tarun Tejpal, senior counsel Rajiv Dhawan said that holding a belief or intuition could not be subjected to contempt. He said that some times, “we go out of the court feeling something is outrageously wrong with it.”
Pleading to the court to drop the proceedings as it would be opening a can of worms, Dhawan said these proceedings would put under the scanner the conduct of former CJIs who face allegations.
“Former CJIs would unnecessarily come under the x-ray in the case”, he told the court.
Senior counsel Shanti Bhushan told the court that he stood by his allegation that eight of the previous 16 chief justices were definitely corrupt, six definitely honest and nothing definite could be said about remaining two. He said that he would like the court to hear his application and if found wrong, he should be sent to jail.
He said that if he goes to jail for exposing rot in the higher judiciary, then it would bring pressure on it (judiciary) and other concerned authorities to take corrective steps.
In the course of the hearing, Jethmalani made some observations in which compensation package for Bhopal Gas tragedy victims was diluted to one-seventh of its original amount of $3.3 billion. He said that even the papers relating to the case have gone missing.
At this, the court said that what ever Jethmalani had said was strictly off the record and asked all those present in the court to take note of it.
–Agencies