NEW DELHI: Former Union Law Minister Shanti Bhushan has alleged that out of the last 16 former Chief Justices of India, eight are “definitely corrupt”.
The senior advocate, who said this in an affidavit filed on Thursday, also claimed that six out of the 16 CJIs were “definitely honest”. About two CJIs “a definite opinion cannot be expressed whether they were honest or corrupt”, he said.
Shanti Bhushan gave details of the identity of the “definitely corrupt”, “definitely honest” and two other judges in a sealed cover for the perusal of judges hearing a contempt petition against his son and advocate, Prashant Bhushan. The junior Bhushan stated in his article published in Tehelka, which constituted contempt of court, that half of the last 16 or 17 judges have been corrupt.
Shanti Bhushan said Prashant’s statement was, in his view, “absolutely correct”. At the time of publication of the article in Tehelka, the last 16 Chief Justices of India have been: 1) Justice Ranganath Mishra, 2) Justice K N Singh, 3) Justice M H Kania, 4) Justice L M Sharma, 5) Justice M N Venkatachalliah, 6) Justice A M Ahemadi, 7) Justice J S Verma, 8) Justice M M Punchhi, 9) Justice A S Anand, 10) Justice S P Bharucha, 11) Justice B N Kirpal, 12) Justice G B Patnaik, 13) Justice Rajendra Babu, 14) Justice R C Lahoti, 15) Justice V N Khare and 16) Justice Y K Sabharwal.
Shanti Bhushan said he should be added as a respondent to the contempt petition. “The applicant would consider it a great honour to spend time in jail for making an effort to get, for the people of India, an honest and clean judiciary.”
He also said, “Since the questions arising in this case affect the judiciary as a whole, the petition needs to be decided by the entire court and not merely by three judges handpicked by a Chief Justice.”