Giving some poll-time relief to Kerala’s beleaguered Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, a division bench of the High Court on Tuesday imposed interim stay on two of the several incisive observations made by a single-judge bench on March 28 against his office in cases pertaining to the fraudulent land deals carried out by his former gunman Salim Raj.
However, the division bench comprising Justices KM Joseph and AK Jayasankar Nambiar has not stayed the other remarks made by Justice Haroon Al Rashid last Friday against Chandy’s office. Also, the division bench has not granted the request of the Government to annul Paragraph 70 of the March 28 verdict containing the remarks against Chandy’s office.
The bench made it clear that the interim stay on the two observations would in no way affect Justice Rashid’s verdict that the cases pertaining to Salim Raj’s land frauds should be probed by the CBI.
Chandy said he was satisfied with the stay on the two remarks but the Opposition continued to demand his resignation saying the stay had not affected the essence of the verdict. One of the two observations of the single-judge bench which the division bench stayed on Tuesday on the basis of an appeal filed by the Government on Monday was that the Chief Minister should provide an explanation to the people about the criminal activities occurring in connection with his office.
The other remark of the single-judge bench stayed by the division bench was that there should be a free and thorough investigation into the happenings in the Chief Minister’s office as it was prima facie obvious that there were certain people among the personal staff of Chandy who would do anything and that they had committed criminal acts.
However, the other remarks of Justice Rashid like criminal interferences had been there from the part of certain members of Chandy’s personal staff, the selection of members of the staff had not been honest, people had been viewing with surprise the developments in Chandy’s office, etc would continue to be effective.
The Advocate General argued that the single-judge bench had made the references against the office of Chandy, who was not connected to the cases in consideration, without hearing his version but the bench rejected this by pointing out that it was the AG who was to speak for the Chief Minister in the court and he had done that.
legal experts pointed out that the division bench’s interim stay had brought only superficial relief to Chandy but the essence of Justice’s verdict and the message in it continued to be effective. “Chandy has got a face-saver and nothing else. There is no meaning in the Government’s claim that the stay is a success for it,” said a senior High Court lawyer.
At the same time, senior Congress leader Rajmohan Unnithan demanded that Justice Haroon al Rashid, who had made the scathing observations against Chandy and his office, should be impeached in the context of reports that Deputy Opposition leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had met the judge at the Kerala House in Delhi on February 28.
“There are several things that can be done. The President can be approached with this request,” said Unnithan, adding that he would make efforts in his individual capacity for this. Kodiyeri had explained that he had indeed met the judge. “The judge wanted to invite me to his daughter’s wedding. That is why I met him,” Kodiyeri said.
Though Chandy repeatedly said that he was not in the habit of finding fault with judges over painful verdicts, several senior Congress leaders and Ministers had leveled serious charges against Justice Rashid over the observations he had made in his verdict against the Chief Minister and his office.