Supreme Court had on April 25 entrusted Justice Patnaik with the probe into 'extraordinary allegations' levelled by advocate Utsav Singh Bains in his affidavit.
May 12, 2019:
Ex-judge of Supreme Court Justice A K Patnaik has commenced his inquiry into the allegation of collusion of middlemen, fixers and dismissed and disgruntled Supreme Court employees to manoeuvre listing of cases before particular benches and making attempts to change judicial orders of the apex court.
Sources said Justice Patnaik inquiry committee has communicated to the director of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Intelligence Bureau director and commissioner of Delhi Police seeking requisite information relating to the issue at hand. "I have called for required information for the probe agencies," Justice Patnaik told TOI . However, he refused to elaborate on the nature of information he has sought from the agencies.
A bench of Justices Arun Mishra, R F Nariman and Deepak Gupta had on April 25 entrusted Justice Patnaik with the probe into 'extraordinary allegations' levelled by advocate Utsav Singh Bains in his affidavit and had asked heads of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), IB and Delhi Police to render assistance to Justice Patnaik as and when he needed it. Since the case that was heard by the three-judge bench headed by Justice Mishra was an offshoot of a dismissed woman Supreme Court employee's sexual harassment complaint against Chief Justice of India(CJI) Ranjan Gogoi which was being inquired into by a three-judge in-house panel of the SC, Justice Patnaik had decided to defer beginning the probe till the panel submitted its report. He is now beginning the probe into Bains's allegations of a conspiracy by middlemen, fixers and disgruntled Supreme Court employees to defame the Chief Justice of India (CJI). The in-house panel has since given a report saying there was no substance in the sexual harassment plaint.
Justice Patnaik had on April 27 told TOI that he has devised a rough plan of action to test the veracity of Bains's sensational allegations, but had said that he would commence his inquiry only after the in-house panel of Justices S A Bobde, Indu Malhotra and Indira Banerjee completed the investigation. But, Patnaik had exuded confidence in reaching to the bottom of the allegations and said, "I will find the truth".
Justice Patnaik had said, "I have gone through the advocate's affidavit and have thought of s a rough plan of action for carrying out the investigations into the allegations. Immediately after the in-house panel completes its task, I will consult the investigation agencies to sharpen the rough plan and proceed expeditiously with the task assigned to me by the Supreme Court."
"I will get to the bottom of the allegations. If these prove to be correct, culprits will be brought to book. My experience as a judge of the constitutional courts for over 20 years and same number of years as an advocate, during which I handled different kinds of criminal cases, would come handy in dealing with the issue at hand," he had said.
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