Katju asked if after receiving the adverse IB report against the Additional Judge, Lahoti, who was then Chief Justice of India, called a meeting of the three-Judge Supreme Court Collegium, consisting of himself, Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice Ruma Pal, and the Collegium, having perused the IB report recommended to the Government of India not to extend the 2-year-term of that Additional Judge?
Katju, Chairman of the Press Council of India, put the posers to Lahoti on his blog.
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"Then I started posting about my experiences there, and it was at time I remembered this experience too, and posted it," he said.
Katju asked, "Is it, or is it not, correct that after that recommendation of the 3 Judge Collegium of the Supreme Court was sent to the Government of India, he (Justice Lahoti), on his own, without consulting his 2 other Supreme Court Collegium colleagues, wrote a letter to the Government of India asking the Government to give another 1 year term as Additional Judge to the concerned Judge?"
The allegation on how an unnamed additional judge of Madras High Court was given extension at the instance of UPA-I government owing to pressure from an ally, a "Tamil Nadu party", apparently DMK, and then confirmed as a permanent judge led to an uproar yesterday in Parliament by AIADMK MPs even as questions were raised by parties like Congress on its timing.