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Govt did not mislead SC in Bezbaruah case: Sorabjee

Attorney General of India Soli Sorabjee has exonerated the Union government of trying to mislead the Supreme Court in the M K Bezbaruah transfer case.

Sorabjee, in his report to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said the mistakes the government made in its affidavit before the court were "genuine" ones.

A major controversy had arisen when Enforcement Directorate chief Bezbaruah, who was handling many sensitive cases, was transferred out, with All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader J Jayalalitha accusing the Centre of acting under pressure from ''influential persons''.

Later, the apex court criticised the government for filing an erroneous affidavit in the case which lead the Centre to cancel the transfer.

"There was no evidence or material to warrant the conclusion that there was any sinister design or intention on the part of the government to mislead the court in the filing of the affidavit,'' Sorabjee's report says.

The erroneous affidavit had led the SC to make adverse observations about the government's conduct, causing much embarrassment.

Sorabjee said a line was missing in an office memorandum, which was reproduced in the affidavit. This made the affidavit erroneous, true, but it was not intentional. Rather, it was due to carelessness and betrays a 'lack of requisite responsibility'.

The report stated that if the petitioner had taken the trouble to verify facts before affirming the affidavit, he would have realised the mistake. In that case, the error could have been acknowledged before the amicus curaie made a grievance in the court.

However, since the petitioner persisted in his error even after the written submission of the amicus curaie on September 7, the solicitor general did not have all the facts before him to place before the court.

''If the solicitor general was conveyed correct facts before the court hearing on Sepember 8, he could have given a full explanation to the court and the occasion for the court's observation could not have arisen,'' the report stated, ''This omission is most regrettable and indicates casualness and lack of requisite care and circumspection.''

In such a sensitive matter, ''One would have expected the deponent and for that matter the department of personnel and training, which had the responsibility of preparing and filing the affidavit, to be more careful and show a greater sense of responsibility," Sorabjee said.

He said the question of misleading arises in a case where one side was in exclusive possession of a document and the other side had no inkling about the contents. However, in this case the amicus curaie was aware of the full contents of the office memorandum -- so there could be no question of misleading the court, he said.

The report said the law, finance and home ministries had no role to play in the preparation of the affidavit.

UNI

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