Probe all judges concerned or I refuse to submit: Judge to CJI

CHANDIGARH: In her second "interim" reply to Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan, justice Nirmal Yadav, a Punjab and Haryana high court judge accused in cash-in-bag scam, has stated that "unless an enquiry is ordered into all allegations against all judges concerned, I refuse to submit to such informal procedure".
Presently under the CBI scanner for Solan land deal, she has taken a rather defiant stand in the reply submitted on Friday, saying she "has the right to reject the enquiry" by the three-judge panel, headed by Allahabad high court chief justice H L Gokhale, as it has been done in a "lopsided manner".She has further stated that "if the telephone numbers of the other judges of the high court (both official and personal) could be supplied to me, I am confident that it would reveal frequent telephonic contact between Sanjiv Bansal and other high court judges". Bansal is one of the key accused in the scam.
She also stated that the other lady judge accused in the scam was "well known to Sanjiv Bansal, his wife Renu Bansal having been her junior, and to Prakash Ram". There was thus no question of delivery of amount to her by mistake. The very necessity of a "deeper probe" was to ascertain the truth and it was not directed against a particular judge but was required to be an enquiry against all judges concerned. She has also stressed that in-house probe was not binding upon her as is clear from the Supreme Court's stand of May 1997 that it (in-house procedure) was only "informal and purely voluntary" in nature.
Thanking the CJI for sending her the documents sought by her, justice Yadav claimed that she was sending the interim reply "because I have not yet received the copies of statements of witnesses recorded by the police".
Expressing surprise at the Gokhale committee's failure to record the statements of Supreme Court and high court judges who were present at the other accused judge's residence when Rs 15 lakh was delivered at her door on August 13 last year, Yadav said "they would have been the best witnesses to depose about the incident and it would not have been necessary for the committee to rely on the statements of clerks and persons of questionable antecedents".
Regarding the Solan land deal, she has stated that "the purchase of land in Himachal Pradesh by me, my family and friends was after following all laws of the land and on obtaining all requisite permissions from the state of Himachal Pradesh." The total consideration for the land was Rs 5,52,000. The share of 18 co-purchasers amounts to Rs 30,666 each, she added.
Telephonic contact
In her reply to the CJI, justice Nirmal Yadav has stated: "The call records supplied to me reveal that the judge of the Supreme Court was in constant telephonic contact ... both before the delivery of cash and thereafter. There are 25 calls between August 13, 2008, to August 20, 2008, from the phones of the Supreme Court judge and the other (HC) judge."