Salve gets CJI Dattu to stay yesterday's Guj HC order in land grant to judges [READ ORDER | UPDATE-2]

Wednesday, 12 August 2015 By Legally India Bar, Bench & Litigation

PTI and others reported that a Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) HL Dattu and justices PC Ghose and Abhay Manohar Sapre has stayed yesterday’s Gujarat high court order serving notice on 27 of its current and former judges over land allotted to them by the state government in 2008.

According to PTI, Dattu said: “The high court was in mortal hurry. This should not have happened. Let the order be stayed. Let us see what can be done.” He ordered the judges’ names to be deleted from the high court petition while notice to the state government and local authorities would be issued.

Senior counsel Harish Salve appeared for one of the retired judges named, Justice Dhiren Arvind Mehta, questioning “the hurry shown by the high court in entertaining a letter by turning it into PIL over allotment of plots which was made several years ago”, according to PTI.

Senior counsel KK Venugopal is appearing for the Gujarat high court advocates association.

The Hindu reported that the judges asked to respond by the Gujarat high court included “Justice Anil R. Dave of the Supreme Court; Chief Justices of the Bombay and Orissa High Courts M.S. Shah and D.H. Waghela, respectively; and eight judges of the Gujarat High Court”:

B.J. Shethna and K.R. Vyas had written to the High Court, where they had served as judges, that they had not been allotted plots by the Niti Bagh Judges Cooperative Housing Society in the upscale Sola and Gota areas in Ahmedabad. They had sought transparency in the allotments.

On August 10, a Bench of Justices Sahai and R.P. Dholaria suo motu converted the letter to a public interest litigation petition. The Bench then went on to implead, and issue notice to, the former and sitting judges.

The Bench refused requests made by the Advocate-General, Gujarat, for time to study the documents, but framed legal questions and referred the matter to a larger Bench to start hearing from Wednesday.

Today's SC order
Today's SC order

PC GhoseAbhay Manohar SapreGujarat high courtHarish SalveSupreme CourtHL Dattu

Comments

Not a Gujarat Judge 12 Aug 2015, 10:27
+4 -0
Doesn't make any sense. So what if the allotments were never questioned earlier? How can such a meaningless argument be made to the Supreme Court and how could the Supreme Court be impressed enough with it so as to stay the issue of a 'mere notice'?
We expect better things from the Supreme Court.
Name or alias 12 Aug 2015, 14:33
+8 -0
You see, plot allotment is a very touchy topic for Mr. Dattu.
concerned 12 Aug 2015, 11:43
+2 -0
I agree with the first comment and in any event, shouldn't some reasons have been provided as to why it was appropriate to stay the order of the High Court? The trend of orders in the nature of "file paper books, obtain stay" and its ilk is certainly worrying. As a matter of good practice, I wonder if it would have been more appropriate for the CJI to have recused himself from this matter in the light of the allegations of Justice Katju who has sought to portray the CJI as being a beneficiary of illegal land allotments himself (although in a different State).
What kind of nonsense! 12 Aug 2015, 13:53
+3 -0
How does Mr.Salve get to tell the Supreme Court on removing sitting judges from the array of parties - if they have been beneficiaries of illegal allotments, they should be made parties and who is Mr.Salve to tell the Supreme Court to remove those names and on what legal principle how does the Supreme Court decide to remove those names from the array of parties?

Was the petitioner at the Gujarat High Court even heard here at the Supreme Court before his choice of respondents were removed? This is terribly high handed on the part of the Supreme Court. Where are all the anti-corruption activists at the Supreme Court and what are they doing?
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