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Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms v. Union of India and Others

Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2017 INSC 1162Decided 1 Dec 2017
Writ Petition (Criminal) No. 169 of 2017
Justice R.K. Agrawal · Justice Arun Mishra · Justice A.M. Khanwilkar

Background

The petitioner NGO sought a Court-ordered Special Investigation Team, headed by a retired Chief Justice of India, to probe an alleged conspiracy to pay bribes to secure a "favourable order" in a medical college matter pending before the Supreme Court, based on a CBI FIR naming a retired High Court judge and several private persons. The Attorney General pointed out that an essentially identical writ petition (Kamini Jaiswal vs. Union of India) raising the same FIR and the same relief had already been heard and dismissed by the Supreme Court on 14 November 2017.

Decision Breakdown

The Court found the facts, reliefs sought, and arguments in this petition to be substantially the same as in the already-decided Kamini Jaiswal case, and reaffirmed that reasoning: the FIR named no sitting judge of any court, and under the Constitution Bench ruling in K. Veeraswami vs. Union of India, no FIR can be registered against a sitting judge without prior consultation with the Chief Justice of India. The Court held that filing this second, nearly identical petition without any new ground scandalized the judiciary without basis and amounted to a gross abuse of the judicial process. It dismissed the writ petition with exemplary costs of Rs. 25 lakh, payable to the Supreme Court Bar Association Advocates' Welfare Fund.

Lesson Learnt

Courts will not entertain repeat public-interest litigation that simply re-raises a claim already rejected in a near-identical petition, especially one making unsubstantiated allegations against the integrity of the judiciary; doing so can attract heavy exemplary costs rather than relief.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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