BENGALURU: Justice HP Sandesh on Monday revealed that he had apprised the concerned about the “transfer threat” received by him.
“I have intimated those whom I’m required to,” the judge said, while hearing a bail petition filed by one of the accused in the Bengaluru DC office bribery case .
Justice Sandesh said the threat came on July 1 at a dinner party arranged for former chief justice Ritu Raj Awasthi upon his superannuation. “A sitting judge sat by my side and told me he had received a call from Delhi (not disclosed the name) enquiring about me. I told him that I am not affiliated to any political party. The judge didn’t stop at that and said the ADGP (Seemanth Kumar Singh, who heads the Anti-Corruption Bureau) is from North India and is powerful and also gave the instance of transferring of a judge,” he added.
On summoning of Singh’s service records, justice Sandesh said it was solely because of the transfer threat received through another judge. “If there was no threat, I would not have summoned the records,” he added. The judge noted that the service records indicated that from April 1, 2008 till August 31, 2009, then SP of Ballari (Singh) was found to be hard working and for the 2009-10 period, the reviewing authority had noted that his supervision had been lax and he was going soft on subordinates.
Mining case: CBI response
CBI counsel P Prasanna Kumar submitted a report along with documents pertaining to the Ballari illegal mining case. Kumar submitted that pursuant to the order passed by Supreme Court, CBI had taken up probe and it was found that none of the departments of state, i.e., revenue, forest, police and others had taken action against illegal mining.
He added that during the probe, the house of Singh, then SP of Ballari, was raided since the materials collected by CBI indicated that the case falls under Prevention of Corruption Act. A letter was addressed to the chief secretary in 2015 to enquire into or investigate the said matter. When the court asked him whether the state replied to the letter, he submitted that it hadn’t.
