Tanvi Sinha
Supreme Court stated that it could not inquire into the illegal transactions related to the Amravati land case.
This case involved former Andhra Pradesh High Court judge Justice V Eswaraiah and a suspended trial court magistrate.
The two-judge bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and RS Reddy reserved its order on the plea of Justice Eswaraiah seeking a stay on the Andhra Pradesh High Court order. The bench stated that the High Court should be the one to take a call.
The Issues that emerged, in this case, were whether the phone conversation between Justice Eswaraiah and District Magistrate pertained to the Benami transactions in the Amravati land case and an alleged conspiracy against the judiciary.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan appearing for the former High Court judge stated that the high court order should be stayed as allegations were made without even hearing the retired judge on the issue.
In an affidavit filed by the former judge, in response to the top court asking him to clarify his stance with the phone conversation in question, Justice Eswaraiah stated that he sought information from the suspended judicial officer on the illegal transactions.
The appeal further spoke of how the order for the inquiry into the private phone conversation was made by the High Court on the basis of intervention and without even issuing a notice to the former judge and was termed as unwarranted, illegal, and something that simply caused undue harassment.
The plea maintains that the conversation was simply there to mention the knowledge of the allegations of misconduct and such a conversation could not be a conspiracy.
Furthermore, it stated that the transcript of the conversation provided by Ramakrishna (the suspended magistrate) was inaccurate and was misleading towards various parts of the conversation.