Updated: October 14, 2020 7:25:23 pm
Andhra CM Jagan Mohan Reddy and Justice NV Ramana
Calling it “abject interference in the administration of justice,” the Delhi High Court Bar Association on Wednesday condemned the letter written by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy to the Chief Justice of India alleging wrongdoing by Justice NV Ramana, a sitting judge of the Supreme Court.
The Bar Association called letter against judge NV Ramana, who is next in line to be CJI, an attempt to intimidate the judiciary and amounted to contempt.
In the letter to the CJI, which was released by Andhra CM Senior Adviser Ajeya Kallam, Reddy alleged that Judge Ramana “has been influencing the High Court (Andhra Pradesh) sessions, including the list of some honorable judges” .
The eight-page letter also refers to Judge Ramana’s alleged “proximity” to TDP leader and former Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, and to an investigation by the Anti-Corruption Office into “questionable land transactions” involving two of the judge’s daughters. Ramana and others in Amaravati before the site of the new state capital was declared.
The Chief Minister has also mentioned “examples of how matters important to the Telugu Desam Party have been assigned to a few Honorable Judges.”
Reddy’s letter to the CJI comes at a time when a court headed by Judge Ramana is hearing a guilty plea that seeks to speed up criminal cases against MPs and current and former MPs. Andhra CM is also facing some cases and the proceedings in one of them were resumed in a CBI court on 9 October.
On Tuesday, a lawyer moved the Supreme Court seeking action against Jagan Mohan Reddy for making public his “baseless accusations” against a higher court judge, stating that “what is at stake is the trust that the courts in a democratic society must inspire in the public.”
The petition, transmitted by lawyer Mukti Singh, said that Reddy “has crossed the limit prescribed by the Constitution” and that what has been done is “nothing more than an attempt to destabilize the properly established democratic configuration of our country.”
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