The Supreme Court, which witnessed high drama in the CBI case Tuesday, refused to hear any party which approached it for urgent hearing.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi refused to hear the mentioning done by lawyers seeking urgent hearing in their matters.
"It will be better if you don't mention anything today", the visibly upset CJI told lawyer Ashwini Upadhayay and others who were standing in the queue to mention their matters.
The CJI also refused to hear advocate Gopal Shankaranarayanan, who represents CBI Director Alok Verma, saying, "You don't utter a word today. We will not hear you."
The Supreme Court was Tuesday furious over the purported leak of Verma's reply to the CVC's findings against him over corruption allegations as also the sensational charges by the agency's DIG Manish Kumar Sinha being made public, telling lawyers none of the parties "deserved" any hearing.
At the start of hearing of the CBI case, which was listed as item number one, the bench gave a note to senior advocate F S Nariman, appearing for CBI director Alok Verma and asked him to peruse it.
"It is only for you Mr Nariman and not as a counsel for Alok Verma. We have given this to you as you are one of the most respected and senior member of the institution. Please help us," the bench said.
After going through the note, which was a news report, Nariman said it was totally "unauthorised" and he was very "disturbed and shocked" by the "leak".
The bench adjourned the hearing to November 29 on the plea filed by Verma, who has challenged the Centre's decision to divest him of duties and sending him on forced leave, saying, "We do not think any of you deserve any hearing".
"For reasons that need not be recorded we are not inclined to afford to the parties a hearing today. The matters are accordingly adjourned to November 29, 2018 when this combination would be next available as one of us (Justice S K Kaul) is away from station with effect from this evening till November 28, 2018 morning," the bench said in its order.
In a sudden turn of events, Nariman re-entered the courtroom after few minutes and mentioned the case seeking re-hearing which was allowed.
When the hearing re-commenced, Nariman said the news article in question was published by the portal on November 17 and it was related to Verma's reply given to the CVC during the preliminary enquiry proceedings.
He further said that the Court's order asking the CBI chief to file his response in a sealed cover to the vigilance probe's finding was passed only on the previous day, November 16.
To this, asking the court staff to take out the report, CJI said: "No Mr Nariman, there is second report also which was published yesterday. You please go through it."
After the court staff scrambled through the files but were not able to trace the document, the infuriated CJI said: "Unfortunately Mr Nariman our court staff has taken the document somewhere.
"The efficiency of court staffs in court number one is of the highest level. You (court staff) all should quit."
When Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for CVC, said that he wants to say something, the CJI straight away stated: "We are not prepared to hear anybody today".
In the meantime, the court staff found the document and handed over it to the CJI, which he gave to Nariman and said, "Whatever we will do, we will do in open court".
Nariman had earlier questioned the move by Shankaranarayanan, his junior in the case, to mention the matter in the court on Monday to seek time to file a reply on behalf of the CBI director.
Following that, Shankaranarayanan said the senior counsel had earlier submitted that he was not authorised to mention the matter.
"I need to clear my name," he said.
However, the CJI observed, "We are not prepared to hear Mr Gopal Shankaranarayanan. We are prepared to hear Mr Nariman only. We want this place clear. As far as this court in concerned Mr Shankaranarayanan, nobody is under any cloud."
When Shankaranarayanan tried to clarify and said, "I had the permission from the client (Verma) to mention the matter," Nariman maintained that he, being the senior counsel, was not informed about the mentioning on Monday.
The bench then again adjourned the matter for November 29.
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