Nearly three months after YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy wrote an explosive letter to Chief Justice of India S A Bobde making certain allegations against Supreme Court judge Justice N V Ramana, the CJI initiated action on the same.
According to reports from New Delhi, the Chief Justice sought the response of Justice Ramana and asked him to give an explanation to the allegations made by Jagan in his letter dated October 6.
Similar response was sought from high court chief justice J K Maheshwari, who was transferred to Sikkim on Thursday, based on the recommendation made by the Supreme Court collegium on December 14.
Apparently, Justice Bobde had already asked Jagan to submit the complaint on oath in the form of an affidavit and the latter had submitted the same, the reports said.
In his letter, Jagan alleged that Justice Ramana, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, was influencing the judges of AP High Court to give judgments against the government in politically sensitive matters.
He went to the extent of alleging that Justice Ramana, in collusion with high court chief justice J K Maheshwari, some other judges and Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu, was trying to destablise his government.
On October 10, the contents of Jagan's complaint to CJI was publicized in a press meet held by Ajeya Kellam IAS, Principal Advisor to the chief minister.
The report said the CJI has bestowed serious attention to Jagan's complaint.
"Before initiating the action on Jagan's letter, CJI Bobde is learnt to have discussed the matter with a few of his colleagues in the Supreme Court. The opinion given, according to sources, was that the charges required 'deeper examination'", the report stated.
While Justice Maheshwari has reportedly given a detailed response to the CJI, details of how Justice Ramana responded are not known. It is significant to note that the transfer of Chief Justice Maheshwari to Sikkim High Court happened after that.
In September, a single bench of CJ Maheshwari had stayed the SIT inquiry ordered by Jagan government into the Amaravati land scam FIR, which names the former Advocate General of the state Dammalapati Srinivas and certain close family relations of Justice Ramana as accused.
Justice Maheshwari also imposed a blanket gag order against the media reports and social media posts about the contents of the FIR. The Supreme Court recently lifted the gag order on an appeal filed by the Andhra Government.