The government has said that the Prime Minister's Office, PMO, and the Law Ministry during Manmohan Singh's tenure intervened in the Madras High Court judge case.
Speaking in the Lok Sabha yesterday, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the PMO, during the UPA rule, had asked the Supreme Court collegium as to why it had not recommended extension for a Madras High Court judge.
Giving details of the controversial case, in which extension was given to an Additional Judge of the Madras High Court, he said, in 2003, the Supreme Court collegium had made some enquiries and decided that the case of this judge should not be taken up.
But later, during the UPA rule, a clarification was sought by the PMO as to why he should not be recommended.
Mr Prasad said, this is a sensitive issue and the government was quite keen to appoint a National Judicial Commission for making such appointments.
The DMK has slammed the former Supreme Court Judge Markandey Katju for his baseless allegation that the Tamil Nadu partner of the UPA lobbied for a corrupt judge.
DMK spokesperson T K S Elangovan said in Chennai that vested interests were behind such allegations.
He informed that the party chief M Karunanidhi held consultations within the party on the matter.
In a letter to his party workers, the DMK President described Katju as a person who would deny his own statement every now and then.
Doubting that Katju's revealation may be out of unseen pressure, he said this would in a way, seem to affect the final outcome of the judgment in the disproportionate assets case of Chief Minister Jayalalitha at the Bangalore Court.
Meanwhile, a PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court, seeking an apex court-montiored probe into the allegations of improper conduct, made by Mr. Katju against three former Chief Justices of India.
Mr. Katju had alleged that the three former Chief Justices of India–Justices R C Lahoti, Y K Sabharwal and K G Balakrishnan–made improper compromises and succumbed to political pressure during the UPA rule in retaining a judge in Tamil Nadu despite an adverse Intelligence Bureau (IB) report on allegations of corruption against him.
