Search the Internet           Tips

Jethmalani fires another salvo at Justice Anand: PTI

Former law minister Ram Jethmalani Saturday stirred another controversy by expressing doubts over the "real age" of Chief Justice of India A S Anand in his new book, but official records support the chief justice.

The 175-page book, Big Egos, Small Men, which hit book stores two days ahead of its formal release on Monday, is written in the backdrop of Jethmalani's confrontation with Justice Anand and Attorney General Soli Sorabjee that led to his sacking from the Union Cabinet in July last. It is the "untold story" of three persons - the third one being the current Law Minister Arun Jaitley - who "bamboozled an unsuspecting prime minister", according to the blurb.

Jethmalani, in the chapter "Our Chief Justice", refers to a petition filed in the early 1990s in Madras High Court when Justice Anand became its chief justice, challenging his claim to have been born in 1936. The petition was dismissed "without dealing with the merits of the issue in controversy", he says.

Jethmalani claims that a document made available by the General Council of the Bar in England shows Justice Anand's year of birth as 1934. He reproduces the document in the annexure of the book.

However, official records show that the chief justice's matriculation certificate shows his date of birth as November 1, 1936. His passport, issued in 1960, gives the same date.

Jethmalani, referring to the enrolment of Justice Anand with the Bar Council of Delhi, writes, "The records show that Dr Anand claimed to have been born on November 1, 1936. But he also claimed that his matriculation certificate had been misplaced."

"There is no evidence," he says, "that Dr Anand ever produced the matriculation certificate which he affirmed to have been misplaced."

However, to a query from the President's office last year on this issue, the law ministry had written in April 28, 1999, saying "We do not see any need to reopen the matter", according to the official records.

The ministry had cited the May 16, 1991, communication from the President's secretary which referred to petitions on Justice Anand's age and said "the records have been perused and the matter considered by the President in consultation with the chief justice of India (Justice Ranganath Mishra).

"The President has come to the conclusion that the petitions of S K Sundaram, in respect of age of Dr Justice A S Anand, chief justice of Madras High Court, be rejected and that no inquiry as stipulated under Article 217(3) of the Constitution need be undertaken," the 1991 communication from President's office had said.

In the preface to the book, Jethmalani describes how he was fired from the Cabinet on July 22, a day after the chief justice of India had publicly made "offensive remarks" directed against him.

He says that a "ready replacement" was available in the person of "my friend" Arun Jaitley, the then minister for information and broadcasting and adds Sorabjee had a "cosy, quasi-paternal relationship with him" and both had the ear of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The Attorney General and Jaitley "cried in unison" that a "constitutional typhoon would devastate the polity unless law minister is put out of way" and then the prime minister was left no time for introspection.

"Vajpayee had heard the same plaint from the highest judge of the realm," the former law minister says.

Jethmalani prefaces his criticism of Justice Anand on the issue of his age by stating that the chief justice has an "unpardonable degree of conceit and self-righteousness." He then goes on to detail his tussle with Justice Anand on the issue of appointment of Chairman of Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission.

On Sorabjee, Jethmalani speaks of "my friendship" and the AG's "betrayal" before attacking him on the opinion he had given to the government on the telecom policy and the advice he had given to the Hindujas in relation to their power project in India.

About the Hindujas, Jethmalani says that there are few politicians who can claim that they have not enjoyed "conspicuous and overgenerous hospitality of the family." He then goes on to mention the advice given to them by Sorabjee.

The Hindujas, he says, had set up an Indian company with whom the Andhra Pradesh State Electricity Board had entered into a Power Purchase Agreement. The price to be paid for the supply of electricity by the board was guaranteed by the Government of India under a separate "counter guarantee".

According to the Government of India, the Hinduja company had breached its obligations and was discharged from its reciprocal obligation as the guarantor, says the book.

The Hindujas, who could hire the most expensive lawyers in any part of the world, decided to have a "favourable opinion" from the Attorney General of the very government with whom they had a dispute, Jethmalani writes.

He says Sorabjee had obliged not with one but two favourable opinions and claimed they were necessarily unfavourable to the Government.

Tell us what you think of this report