The Supreme Court on Tuesday, 12 July, asked Karnataka High Court’s Justice HP Sandesh to defer the hearing of a case involving the state’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for three days.
A bench led by Chief Justice NV Ramanna passed the direction while hearing a plea filed by the Karnataka ACB and its head, Additional Director General of Police Seemanth Kumar Singh, over remarks made by Sandesh.
The order said, “We request the learned judge to defer the hearing for a period of three days to enable us to look into the order passed on 11 July.”
On Monday, Sandesh recorded in a written order that he was given an indirect threat of transfer during a function organised by the high court.
On the same day, he directed the Karnataka chief secretary not to appoint tainted officers to helm institutions involved in the public interest.
Transfer threat to high court judge
The indirect threat of transfer, as mentioned by the high court judge, came to the fore on 4 July during the hearing of the bail plea of a corruption-accused deputy tehsildar for allegedly accepting a bribe.
During the hearing, Sandesh said, “I am going to protect the independence of the judiciary at the cost of my judgeship.”
Expressing discontent, he said the ADGP was a powerful person, and that a high court judge cited to him an example of another judge being transferred for intervening on similar lines.
The judge orally revealed that he was given an indirect threat of transfer for continuously monitoring the progress of the ACB in a corruption case that involved an incumbent deputy commissioner of Bengaluru.
During the bail hearing, Sandesh also rapped counsel for the ACB for being reluctant in producing documents pertaining to the case.
