31 yrs on, past returns to haunt Andhra judge

Twelve years after an advocate became a judge at the Andhra Pradesh high court, his past has come to haunt him. The Supreme Court today agreed to hear a petition seeking Justice Nuthalapati Venkataramana's removal on account of alleged offences committed before his enrolment as an advocate.

Twelve years after an advocate became a judge at the Andhra Pradesh high court, his past has come to haunt him. The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a petition seeking Justice Nuthalapati Venkataramana's removal on account of alleged offences committed before his enrolment as an advocate.

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A bench of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai said it would hear the public interest litigation (PIL), which raises serious allegations against the sitting judge, on July 6 - once the court re-opens after the vacations. Senior advocates Ram Jethmalani and Shanti Bhushan appeared for the petitioners, two lawyers from the Andhra Pradesh high court bar.

According to the petitioners, the judge's enrolment as a lawyer in 1983 was illegal because of a false declaration that he was not facing any criminal case while filing the registration form with the state bar council. According to the case, filed under several sections of the IPC in February 13, 1981, the judge had allegedly indulged in largescale rioting along with several students of the Nagarjuna University in Guntur - destroying public transport buses and assaulting passengers.

The petitioners said that at the time of his elevation, Justice Venkataramana was a declared proclaimed offender. However, a year later, the cases against him and the other accused were withdrawn following an application moved by the state.

In their petition, the duo said they had decided to file the PIL after no action was taken on a complaint written to Chief Justice of India SH Kapadia and law minister Salman Khurshid on January 8, 2012. "Three months having passed and no appropriate action having been taken, the present writ petition is being filed in the interest of the fair administration of justice," the petitioners stated, adding that the appointment was in violation of the constitution. "It is submitted that once a chargesheet had been filed and the court has treated the respondent number 3 (sitting HC judge) as a proclaimed absconder on May 8, 2000, barely over a month later, he is appointed as a judge of the High Court. If such an appointment were permitted to stand, it would send out an entirely wrong message to the legal community," the petition stated.