The controversy over a Union minister allegedly trying to influence a Madras High Court judge in a pending criminal case echoed in Parliament today with the opposition demanding his dimissal even as AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa named A Raja as the person involved, a charge he refuted.
The chief justice of India KG Balakrishnan said the incident was "the rarest of rare case" and that the judge has done the right thing by recusing himself.
Asked if the judge should not be revealing the name of the minister, Balakrishnan told CNN-IBN, "he has done what he could have done. It is an incident which has saddened me."
But Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal, a lawyer-turned politician, suggested that the judge concerned--justice R Raghupathy--should reveal the identity of the caller.
"If public life is to be cleaned and we want to move forward then people should have the courage to move forward on what they have stated in public. When a judge decided to do that, either you should not state it in public and if he states it he should come out with entire set of facts so that action can be taken," Sibal said.
Raising the issue during Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha, Leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley made a covert reference to telecom minister A Raja as the minister possibly involved saying a minister is not "a Raja" who is not accountable. Jaitley said the prime minister should immediately "dump" the minister and his demand was backed by the CPI-M and AIADMK.
Naming Raja, Jayalalithaa claimed that the doctor whose anticipatory bail case was sought to be influenced hailed from Perambalur, which is also Raja's native town and where the minister reportedly had his law office in a building owned by the doctor. Raja described the charges as baseless and politically motivated.
The entire opposition in the Assembly in DMK-ruled Tamil Nadu Assembly also staged a walkout over the issue.
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