Tainted judge’s appointment rejected

The Supreme Court collegium has rejected a proposal to appoint controversial advocate GS Cheema as a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, reports Satya Prakash.

The Supreme Court collegium has rejected a proposal to appoint controversial advocate GS Cheema as a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

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However, the collegium headed by Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan is understood to have cleared other names recommended for appointment as judges of the high court.

Cheema, whose name figured in the 2002 “cash-for-job scam” involving the then state public service commission chairman Ravinderpal Singh Sidhu, was recommended for appointment as a judge in January by the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s collegium headed by Chief Justice Vijender Jain.

In his statement recorded under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code before a judicial magistrate, former Markfed officer and Sidhu’s alleged conduit Randhir Singh Gill, alias Dheera, had said Cheema had contacted him on behalf of two candidates who were ready to pay huge sums of money for a Punjab Civil Service job. Dheera, who turned approver in the case, later maintained his statement before the trial judge at Patiala in 2006. The trial in the cash-for-job scam against Sidhu and others is yet to conclude.