Bharat Parashar, trial judge in the coal scam allocation cases, joins a select list of only two others of his ilk who made a former prime minister an accused in a corruption case and summoned him.
Prem Kumar and Ajit Bharihoke, both retired, were the other two. They named and summoned former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao. This was in the 1990s, in the Lakhubhai Pathak cheating case, the St Kitts forgery case and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha bribery case.
Parashar, like Kumar and Bharihoke, belongs to the Delhi Higher Judicial Service. He is in his 40s and has earned a reputation of keeping investigating agencies, like the Delhi Police and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), on their toes.
In the coal scam hearings, it was Parashar who castigated the CBI for not having examined the seemingly main players in the scam, including former coal ministers. This led to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had also handled the coal portfolio, to be named and summoned.
Sources in the Delhi Police say the man is hardworking and known for integrity. Those who have seen Parashar at work say a quality that marks him out is a rare persistence to not spare the guilty. And, to also be lenient with those he thinks are innocent but suffering because of their inability to hire a good lawyer.
Parashar is also known to be his own man and those looking for ideological predilections will be disappointed. “If not apolitical, he is ambivalent towards any political ideology and is committed to the book,” a lawyer said.
On August 8, 2014, Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung issued a notification appointing Parashar, under directions from the Supreme Court, the special judge to “exclusively try the offences pertaining to the coal block allocations”.
Parashar has served as a sessions judge in the northwest district of the city, handling cases related to scheduled castes and tribes, before moving to the Patiala House courts. He has also served as a joint registrar of the high court.
In August 2014, days before being appointed the special judge for coal scam cases, Parashar gave a judgment in another high-profile case. He sentenced Sher Singh Rana to life imprisonment for killing reformed dacoit and Member of Parliament Phoolan Devi, in July 2001. He was also the judge dealing with the Indian Premier League spot-fixing case.
