Order on quo warranto against CJI reserved

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 12. The Supreme Court will pass orders on February 14 on the admissibility of a writ of quo warranto petition filed by the Madras High Court Advocates Association raising the age issue of the Chief Justice of India, Dr. A. S. Anand and questioning under what authority he is holding office.

A Bench comprising Mr. Justice K. T. Thomas, Mr. Justice R. P. Sethi and Mr. Justice B. N. Agarwal reserved orders after hearing the president of the petitioner association, Mr. R. Karuppan, for more than an hour. He alleged that the CJI was illegally holding the office though he had attained the age of superannuation on October 31, 1999. The bench said ``we will pass orders whether to issue notice on the petition or not''.

Besides the CJI, Dr. Anand, the Union Government - represented by the Law Secretary - and the President of India have been cited as respondents in the writ petition which prayed for a direction to determine the date of birth of Dr. Anand as November 1, 1934 and a declaration that the CJI had attained the age of superannuation in 1999.

The Bench pointed out to the counsel that while deciding the contempt case against a Chennai-based advocate, Mr. S. K. Sundaram, the court had held that the determination of the age of Dr. Anand by the President on May 16, 1991 was final and that it was not open to anyone to raise the issue again.

However, the counsel contended that though a petition was sent to the President in 1991, his order was not at all communicated to Mr. Sundaram. It was only during October/ November, 2000 the order purported to have been passed by the President surfaced although it had not been vouched.

The Bench reminded the counsel that from the writ petition ``we have not been able to see even a single fresh document to show that the year or birth of Dr. Justice Anand was 1934. On the contrary it had been conclusively proved that the year of birth of the CJI was only 1936''.

When the counsel asserted that fresh documents had come to surface from foreign agencies, the Bench said ``show us one document to show the year of birth of the CJI as 1934''.

When the Bench wanted to know whether the counsel had challenged the order passed by the President in 1991, Mr. Karuppan said he had not challenged it as no such communication had been received from the Rashtrapathi Bhavan to that effect. To this, the Bench said ``you are asking us to go into the President's order as an appellate forum''.

Mr. Karuppan pleaded that the court should order notice to the respondents; in the alternative the Bench should refer the petition to a Constitution Bench.

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