The Kerala High Court on Monday witnessed an incident of the rarest kind when a senior judge said in open court that he was offered Rs25 lakh as bribe in a COFEPOSA case involving members of a major racket that had been smuggling gold through the Kochi international airport. The judge, Justice KT Sankaran, recused himself from hearing the case in the particular context.
Justice Sankaran made the revelation when a division Bench comprising him and Justice A Hariprasad were to take up a batch of petitions challenging the preventive detention order issued against the accused in the gold smuggling case under COFEPOSA. The senior judge said one of the accused had approached him with the bribe offer through an acquaintance.
The offer, according to him, was that he would be given Rs25 lakh or even more if the verdict on the petitions was favourable to the accused. He said that he was not a person who would be influenced by such temptations. He also expressed the doubt that the offer was made perhaps with the intention of making him recuse from hearing the case.
However, the division Bench then recused from hearing the case because of ‘reasons beyond’ its control. The case would now have to be heard by a different Bench. The State Vigilance Director has ordered an inquiry into the incident disclosed by the judge.
The COFEPOSA advisory board had earlier this year confirmed the preventive detention of eight accused in the gold smuggling case. COFEPOSA provisions were invoked against nine accused in the case pertaining to gold smuggling through the Kochi international airport at Nedumbassery.
As per the case, the racket had smuggled about 2,000 kilos of gold through the Kochi airport for a base in Muvattupuzha, some 40 KM east of Kochi, with the help of airport staff including a former immigration officer. The racket was busted in May, 2015. Eight of the nine accused in the case are under detention at the Central Prison in Thiruvananthapuram since last October.