National

Judge Dread

A Delhi HC judge, land scams, wine and women. Yet another sordid saga <a href=pti_coverage.asp?gid=48>Updates</a>

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Judge Dread
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Justice Shamit Mukherjee:
The floor fittings in the house are yet to be installed. Please get it done fast. This time also ensure there is more Scotch and the women have to be better also...
Khattar:
Yes, it will be done soon. Give me a few days.

It was to these connections that Mukherjee owed his various key appointments—first as standing counsel to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and later, as a judge of the Delhi High Court. Before his elevation, he was a reasonably successful lawyer, although hardly on the ‘A’ list. Sources in the legal community say his last I-T returns before assuming judgeship ran to about Rs 16 lakh.

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Mukherjee was also thought to be an amiable judge. Says a senior lawyer of him: "Mukherjee created a decent impression in a high court riddled with nepotism and underhand dealings. His PR was excellent and he was on good terms with everybody." The mandatory IB report on Mukherjee at the time of his elevation also did not contain anything adverse or uncomplimentary.

But the picture that emerges from the CBI tap on Khattar’s six mobile phones is shockingly contradictory. Some of these phones had been given to sacked DDA chairman Subash Sharma and lands commissioner Jagdish Saran. The story the CBI pieced together was a sordid tale of sex, wine and corruption. The investigating agency had to correlate nearly 10,000 conversations and link them with files seized during the raids to make out cases that were legally admissible. CBI sources also pointed out that two more high court judges, allegedly involved in Khattar’s racket, have yet to resign.

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The transcripts, currently in the possession of CBI special court judge V.K. Jain, are a veritable Pandora’s box. In fact, some of the leads from the telephone taps are yet to be pursued by the CBI. In one such conversation (which Outlook had access to), Khattar makes a claim to a prime accused in the DDA scam that he was going out with a "chief justice" to "get things done". A reference is also made during the call to money being doled out to some bureaucrats. The code words used: murgi (chicken=Rs 1 lakh) and tota (parrot=Rs 10,000). The investigating agency is now examining if a case of disproportionate assets can be made out against Mukherjee.

In fact, it was Mukherjee’s unseemly enthusiasm to favour businessman Vinod Khatri’s swank south Delhi restaurant, Sahara, by passing an interim order staying the widening of a road that finds him in the CBI net. Without the stay, the restaurant would have been bulldozed. According to CBI officials, it was also at his instance that DDA counsel Gita Mittal was removed from the case when she took a tough line.

Detractors refer to Mukherjee as the ‘wheelchair judge’, a reference to his habit of bringing his paralysed wheelchair-bound wife to judicial and legal dos. It won him a great deal of sympathy and may have even helped him secure the position in the high court. Indeed, one of the points advanced in his favour by friends was that the transfer from bar to bench would give him more time with his wife. "He was socially very active. But after he became a judge, he stopped taking his wife to parties," says a high court lawyer.

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The sole point of surprise was that Mukherjee was quick to admit his guilt to the CBI. On the day of his arrest itself, Mukherjee reportedly admitted before a senior CBI official that he had committed "an act of grave indiscretion". Mukherjee also revealed that he was "very fond of women and wine", a weakness he had succumbed to after his wife’s illness.

It was the former trait that brought Mukherjee into contact with Khattar who used to procure girls for him. His plush "guesthouses" in Asiad Village and Jangpura in south Delhi were at the disposal of his "friends", including the judge. Through his contacts in Delhi’s chatterati class, Khattar is also learnt to have provided some women from Uzbekistan to those who preferred "foreign flesh".

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Among the women Mukherjee "met" through Khattar were some B-list socialites too. Sources say he was closely involved with high court lawyer Anshu Aggarwal and it was apparently during a rocky patch in their relationship—Aggarwal had become too demanding—that Khattar became close to Mukherjee. Anshu Aggarwal, however, insists Mukherjee was nothing more than a friend.

Aggarwal was also to prove Mukherjee’s nemesis. Four days after the CBI raided Khattar’s premises—as well as those of senior DDA officials—the crucial files linking Mukherjee to the scam came to light. The CBI referred the seized files to then Delhi High Court chief justice Devendra Gupta, who found it pertained to the cases in Mukherjee’s court. Yet, the judgements were in Aggarwal’s handwriting. The cat was out of the bag.

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Mukherjee, when asked for an explanation, reportedly claimed he was in the habit of getting his juniors to correct his judgements. As this amounted to judicial misconduct, the matter was referred to the Chief Justice of India. In the meantime, sources close to the jailed judge say a beleaguered Mukherjee tried desperately to meet law minister Arun Jaitley—who had okayed his appointment—and even spent a couple of hours outside his house. But he was unable to contact Jaitley either on phone or in person.

The advice from all quarters was to quit and he did, apparently because he did not want the "sex scandal" part to come out. His marriage had already been under pressure because of his lifestyle. He may also have presumed that as in the case of Rajasthan High Court judge, Arun Madan, he would escape prosecution by resigning. Belatedly realising that the resignation was no protection, he tried to withdraw it. But the President of India, on the advice of the ministry of home affairs and the law minister, ruled that it would be unconstitutional. "He wanted to retract his resignation because he could claim immunity. But that did not happen," said a CBI official.

At this point, Mukherjee seems to have lost his nerve. "He literally began babbling to colleagues over how Khattar had taken advantage of him and how he had been abandoned by his high-and-mighty friends," says a high court lawyer. He told the CBI pretty much the same thing under interrogation, until reined in by his own counsel.

For Mukherjee, the timing of the CBI raids was unfortunate. Another couple of months and his position would have been well-nigh unassailable. His appointment would have been made permanent and nothing short of impeachment could have removed him before retirement. Indeed, a file to this effect had already been moved, but was put on hold soon after the CBI raids.

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Mukherjee’s arrest may just be the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The phone transcripts and Khattar’s interrogation could reveal explosive details that may even implicate senior politicians. So far, the CBI has managed to question Khattar for just half-an-hour since his arrest last month (he has been hospitalised since then). As the case unfolds, there will be many more surprises. Mukherjee has even threatened to go public with the various scams in the high court.

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