The seniormost judge at the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, Justice Pradeep Kant, has been suddenly divested of the case challenging closure of Taj Heritage Corridor case against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, which he had been hearing since the last 18 months.In a move bound to raise questions, the Allahabad High Court Chief Justice, JI Rebello, has issued two administrative orders — copies of which are available with Hindustan Times — on August 28 and 31, which take away the controversial case from the bench headed by Justice Kant. The orders by Justice Rebello came barely nine days after he had met the Chief Minister and her senior party colleague, Satish Chandra Mishra at Lucknow on August 19.
In his first order on August 28, Justice Rebello announced the splitting of PILs into civil and criminal. “All PIL (civil) matters, including those part-heard will be taken over by the bench presided over by Justice Kant and all PIL (criminal) matters by the bench of Justice A Mateen,” the order said.
This was followed up by another administrative order three days later on August 31, which appeared to clarify the doubts arising out of the earlier order. “Matter pending as PIL wherein sanction/non sanction orrefusal to grant sanction under sections 196 or 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code as well as under section 19 of Prevention of Corruption Act is involved will be classified as criminal PIL.”
These sections deal with sanction from competent authorities before initiating court proceedings against public servants.
The August 31 order makes it clear that matters related to sanction of prosecution will no longer be heard by Justice Kant.
Acting on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), a bench headed by Justice Kant had, on September 19, 2009, issued notices to Mayawati and state PWD minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui, seeking resumption of proceedings against them in the R175 crore Taj Heritage Corridor scam, exposed in 2003.
A CBI court in Lucknow had closed the case against them in 2007 following denial of prosecution sanction by the then governor, TV Rajeshwar.
The previous attempt to get the case listed before another judge had failed in February, when acting chief justice Amitava Lala had declined a plea to shift the case.
Justice Rebello was not available for his comments. “Hon’ble lordship is out of Allahabad till September 27,” his office said. Justice Kant declined to comment on the issue.
BSP leader Mishra did not respond to the phone calls and SMS messages sent to him. Senior Supreme Court lawyer Rajeev Dhawan said the orders did not appear to be above doubt. “The Chief Justice is well within his right to decide the judges roster. However, in the present case, sequence of events lack transparency and the decision is not above doubt,” Dhawan said.
Lucknow based veteran jurist and former high court judge, Justice Kamleshwar Nath, said it would have been better in case the arrangement was not disturbed. “Once when a judge starts hearing a case, unless he wants, the hearing should be completed without any change.”
