Supreme Court reserves verdict in challenge by former Andhra Pradesh High Court Chief Justice V Eswaraiah against probe into his phone chat

The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its order in a plea by former Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, V Eswaraiah challenging an order passed by the Andhra Pradesh High Court calling for a probe into his telephonic conversations with a suspended District Munsif Magistrate (Justice V Eswaraiah v. Union of India)..Advocate Prashant Bhushan appearing for the former judge before a Bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and R Subhash Reddy, argued that if at all an enquiry has to be held into the contents of a private conversation, then the entire case has to be looked into. ."If you want to hold an enquiry. Hold it about the full thing. I spoke about some land deals where a sitting Supreme Court judge is involved. Then there should be an enquiry into the land deals too," Bhushan said..Bhushan further argued that the conversation in question was a private one and that the High Court had passed the order without issuing notice to Justice Eswaraiah and without hearing his side. .However, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appearing for the suspended magistrate argued that the portion edited out in the transcript of the conversation filed by Bhushan was "scandalous" in nature. ."Nothing has been edited out. It's exactly as per the conversation on the pen drive. The conversation I had with Ramakrishna was three fold. First was his suspension, then I cajoled him and then took information regarding the benami land deals. I have come out in several press conferences where I have stated things about the sitting Supreme Court judge and his closeness to the erstwhile Chief Minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh," Bhushan responded. .Bhushan also questioned the bona fides of intervention in the matter by Senior Advocate Harish Salve who was representing P Samuel John, a lawyer from Andhra Pradesh.The plea by John, filed through advocate Vipin Nair, claimed that he was "deeply troubled by the series of attacks launched against the Judicial institutions in the State of Andhra Pradesh.""I am surprised how these interventions are allowed. Who are they? These are mala fide interventions," Bhushan alleged. .Salve, however, maintained that the affidavit filed by the former judge left many questions unanswered. ."First he accepted everything and then filed an affidavit with ifs and buts. This affidavit makes matter worse. Either we have a complete transcript of what was said. Evidence needs to be recorded from the district judge," submitted Salve. .Even as Advocate Bhushan insisted for a stay on the High Court order, the Supreme Court stated it will clarify the same in its order and reserved its verdict. .Justice V Eswaraiah had earlier informed Supreme Court that the telephonic conversation between him and the suspended District Munsif Magistrate did indeed take place over a Whatsapp call..However, he also stated that it was possible that "audio conversation as in the pen-drive may not be the exact conversation which took place and it is possible that some parts of conversation were edited out.".The High Court had ordered an inquiry into the conversation which allegedly disclosed some material about a plot against the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court and a sitting judge of the Supreme Court..The order by the High Court was passed in an intervention application filed by a suspended District Munsif Magistrate in an unrelated public interest litigation petition seeking implementation of COVID-19 guidelines in the High Court.In his plea before the Supreme Court, Justice Eswaraiah has pointed out that the inquiry into the conversation was ordered by the High Court on the basis of the intervention application without even allowing the intervention and without notice to him..In his affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, the former judge has stated that "the voice in the conversation appears to be mine" and "hence the part what I have purported to say is correct.".The suspended District Munsiff Magistrate called me over Whatsapp on July 20, 2020, however I do not know from which phone number he called from. Whatsapp is end to end encrypted and thus recording of call is not possible. However the recording proves that an external device was used to record the conversation," stated the affidavit..Eswaraiah has also alleged that the audio clip was leaked to a news channel to tarnish his image and to defame him..Justice RV Raveendran, retired judge of the Supreme Court of India, was asked by the High Court to hold an inquiry to find out the authenticity of the conversation. Justice Eswaraiah has vehemently opposed the same.