Supreme Court Defers Judgment On Justice Eswaraiah's Plea To Set Aside AP High Court Order For Enquiry Into Alleged Phone Call 'Conspiracy' Against SC Judge

The Supreme Court on Friday deferred pronouncement of the judgement in the plea filed by former Andhra Pradesh High Court Judge, Justice V. Eswaraiah, against an order of the Andhra Pradesh High Court ordering a judicial inquiry into an alleged phone conversation between him and a District Judge plotting 'conspiracy' against the Chief Justice of the High Court and a sitting Supreme Court Judge.A Bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan was apprised by Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, who is appearing for an intervenor apposing Eswaraiah's plea, that an Application was filed relating to the seizure of the phone of the District Judge Mr. S. Ramakrishna(with whom Eswaraiah was allegedly speaking). Agreeing to the request of the Senior Counsel to take into account this application while pronouncing the judgment, the Court adjourned the matter to April 5. Sibal informed the Court, "We have filed an Application to place certain facts on record. Judge Ramakrishna was arrested in an unconnected case and his phone was seized. Police said phone was lost. This was done purposely to not bring the conversation on record. It is to subvert the inquiry".Accordingly, he requested the Bench to keep this in mind while pronouncing the judgement. The matter will now be heard on April 5th.It was on February 22 that a bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and R Subhash Reddy reserved orders on the petition filed by Eswaraiah against the AP High Court order, which entrusted the enquiry with former SC judge Justice R V Raveendran.During the hearing, Advocate Prashant Bhushan appearing for Justice Easwariah submitted that the High Court has passed the impugned order in a "strange" manner, while hearing an unconnected petition. He said,"Here what the HC has done is that...they were hearing a matter related to a death of a HC staff due to COVID due to non-following of protocols in HC. In that case, a suspended district judge files an impleading petition and produces the alleged conversation between him and Easwariah."Bhushan submitted that the conversation between Easwariah and the District Judge was three fold: Easwariah asked about Judge's suspensionEaswariah cajoled and consoled the JudgeThey spoke about allegations of Amaravati land scam, in which the relatives of a sitting judge of the Supreme Court were accused. He insisted that nothing about the above said conversation should be a matter of enquiry and yet, if the Court decides to proceed with the matter and examine the private conversation, then there should be an enquiry into the whole thing. "I have talked about certain land transactions by a sitting judge of this Court. Enquire into that too," Bhushan submitted.Senior Advocates Harish Salve and Kapil Sibal had appeared for certain intervenors who were opposing Easwariah's plea. Earlier, the Court had required Justice Eswaraiah to file an affidavit regarding alleged private phone conversation with Mr. S. Ramakrishna, a suspended District Munsif Magistrate of Andhra Pradesh, into which an inquiry has been ordered by the High Court.The High Court requested former Supreme Court judge Justice RV Raveendran to enquire into the matter. After it was alleged that the phone call disclosed a "serious conspiracy" against the High Court Chief Justice and a senior sitting Judge of the Supreme Court, the Andhra Pradesh High directed an investigation by a retired Supreme Court judge into it, against which order Justice Eswaraiah has moved the top court. In his affidavit, through advocate Prashant Bhushan, he, however, admits that the suspended District Munsif Magistrate had called him over WhatsApp on 20th of July, 2020, but that he does not know from which phone number he had called. He also denies the contention that he had, through his PA, required the said Magistrate to call him. "I cannot say that the conversation as contained in the pen drive is the exact conversation. The voice appears to be mine and therefore, that part of what I have purported to have said appears to be correct. It is, however, possible that some parts of the conversation that took place have been edited out. Therefore, the conversation as contained in the pen drive may not be the conversation that took place with me to the extent that it is called. It would be pertinent to state here that since WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted and it does not have a recording feature, as such the recording by the suspended District Munsif magistrate of the WhatsApp audio conversation had to be through an external device, which is not a primary source and can be easily distorted using technology as has been done by Mr. Ramakrishna", the former judge has said. He continues to assert that even the English transcription of the audio conversation as contained in the pen drive filed by Mr S. Ramakrishna before the High Court is incorrect, that it has been...

Supreme Court Defers Judgment On Justice Eswaraiah's Plea To Set Aside AP High Court Order For Enquiry Into Alleged Phone Call 'Conspiracy' Against SC Judge

Radhika Roy

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