CBI Files Charge Sheet Against Former Allahabad HC Judge Justice SN Shukla In Medical College Bribery Case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed its charge sheet against former Allahabad High Court Judge Justice Sri Narayan Shukla in the medical college bribery case wherein he has been accused of favoring a private medical college in his orders.As reported by PTI (quoting CBI Officials), in its FIR, besides Justice Shukla of the Allahabad High Court, the agency has also named retired Chhattisgarh High Court judge IM Quddusi, Bhagwan Prasad Yadav, and Palash Yadav of the Prasad Education Trust, the trust itself and private persons Bhavna Pandey and Sudhir Giri.Recently, the Allahabad High Court had granted its sanction to the CBI to prosecute its former Judge, Justice SN Shukla, in the medical college bribery case The CBI has alleged that Justice Shukla took illegal gratification for passing a favorable order in a matter regarding Prasad Institute of Medical Science, Lucknow.The allegation against him was that he permitted a private medical college to admit students for the academic year 2017-18, despite orders against it by the Medical Council of India and the Supreme Court.As per the FIR, a conspiracy was hatched between BP Yadav, Chairman, Prasad Educational Trust, former judge Justice IM Quddusi, Bhawana Pandey, a private person through Sudhir Giri of Venkateshwara Medical College (Meerut) in order to obtain a favorable order from Justice Narayan Shukla at Lucknow Bench by corrupt and illegal means.The FIR registered also names former judge of Orissa High Court Justice IM Quddusi and they have been booked under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code along with Sections 7, 8, 12, and 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.As per the requirement of the PC Act, the CBI had earlier this year applied before the High Court seeking its nod to prosecute the retired judge. In the year 2019, CBI had even conducted raids at the premises of Justice Shukla.Justice S. N. Shukla, a judge of Allahabad High Court retired on 17 July 2020. However, at the time of his retirement, he was not being assigned any judicial work. In fact, all judicial work had been taken away from him following the orders of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in January 2018.The move had come after a three-judge in-house committee formed by CJI had returned its findings against Justice Shukla.A complaint was made to the CJI in 2017, following which CJ Misra had constituted an in-house committee comprising Madras High Court Chief Justice Indira Banerjee, Sikkim High Court CJ SK Agnihotri and Madhya Pradesh HC judge PK Jaiswal.The inquiry committee had found that Justice Shukla had "disgraced the values of judicial life, acted in a manner unbecoming of a judge, lowered the majesty, dignity and credibility of his office".Armed with this report, the then CJI, Misra had then, on 2 February 2018 written to the President's Secretariat, requesting them to initiate removal proceedings against the Judge.Further, in June 2019, the Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about initiating an impeachment motion in Parliament for removal of Justice Shukla.

CBI Files Charge Sheet Against Former Allahabad HC Judge Justice SN Shukla In Medical College Bribery Case

Sparsh Upadhyay

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