CHENNAI : The Madras High Court on Friday hit out at the unholy nexus between a few senior police officers and a section of advocates and transferred a cheating case, which had bee closed as “mistaken of fact” by the Chennai city police, to the CBI.Justice PN Prakash also suggested to the High Court to form a special bench to monitor the trial in the three-year-old case pertaining to the infamous siege to the house of the then Chief Justice S K Kaul in 2015. The judge made the observations, pointing out the involvement of senior IPS officer P Sivanandi (retired later) and that a huge money was paid to the advocates to lay siege to the CJ’s house to get bail for the accused in the case that was on Friday transferred to the CBI by the High Court.
“The only parallel to this was the ransacking of the Supreme Court of Pakistan by lawyers in allegiance to Nawaz Sharif to remonstrate against the orders passed by the then Chief Justice Syed Sajjad Ali Shah against Nawaz Sharif,” the judge observed.
The judge said that a perusal of the CDR details of the mobile phone of Sivanandi showed that he had been constantly in touch with two advocates, who were allegedly involved in the siege to the CJ’s house. Dictates of common sense state that the attack would not have been made possible without the backstage support of a senior police officer like Sivanandi, the judge added.
The judge also noted, after seeing the final report of the CB-CID, that two teams - ‘gate’ team and ‘bike’ team - exist almost in all lower courts and in this case in the Magistrate court in Saidapet. The ordinary litigants and advocates from other Bars are required to pay protection money to the ‘gate’ team for defending an accused. The services of the ‘bike’ team are available for illegal dispossession of persons from disputed properties and for related attacks.
“When this has been happening right under the very nose of the High Court, we cannot afford to turn a Nelson’s eye to these activities and choose to live in the comfort of the CISF cocoon,” Justice Prakash said. Perhaps, the fear of these gangs could also be one of the reasons for the Magistrates not even taking the charge-sheets on file, each one hoping that he can pass on the baton to his successor. When this is the plight of the Judicial Officers, it is not known how witnesses will come forward to give evidence against the accused in a case,” the judge wondered.
“It is time for the High Court to seriously explore the suggestions given in the Justice K Chandru Committee report, wherein the ills plaguing the Magistracy in the City have been set out and the remedies therefor have been prescribed”, the bench added and directed the Registry to place a copy of this order before the Chief Justice to consider all these aspects and if warranted, pass orders constituting a special bench for monitoring the trial in the case.