CAMPAIGN FOR JUDICIAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND REFORM 6/6 Basement, Jangpura B, NEW DELHI-1100014

Tel : 7838211548

judicialreforms@gmail.com , www.judicialreforms.org

Patrons: Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, Justice P.B.Sawant, Justice H. Suresh, Shri Shanti Bhushan, Shri K.G.

Kannabiran, Shri Ajit Bhattacharjea, Prof. B.B.Pande, Admiral R.H. Tahiliani, Dr. Bhaskar Rao,

Ms. Arundhati Roy, Dr. Banwari Lal Sharma, Shri Pradip Prabhu, Prof Babu Mathew, Dr Baba

Adhav, Ms. Kamini Jaiswal, Shri Mihir Desai, Shri Manoj Mitta

Working Committee: Prashant Bhushan, Venkatesh Sundaram, Indu Prakash Singh, D. Leena, Devvrat,

Rohit Kumar Singh, Cheryl D’Souza, Pranav Sachdeva

27th November 2014

Mr. Narendra Modi Prime Minister of India, Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi. Subject: - Request to cancel the appointment of Hon’ble Mr. Justice C K Prasad as Chairperson of Press Council of India Dear Shri Modi, The Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms is a campaign committed

towards bringing about an accountable and transparent judicial system which is

accessible to every citizen of this country. The Campaign has, since its inception,

highlighted several serious problems with the Indian Judicial System including its lack of

affordability, its inaccessibility to the poor and marginalized, the appointment of its

judges, its elitist and anti-poor bias, the lack of proper redressal mechanisms to address

grievances against judges, inordinate delays in deciding matters and several instances

of corruption in the higher judiciary.

Hon’ble Mr. Justice C K Prasad has been appointed the chairman of Press Council of

India (hereinafter referred as PCI). He is not a fit person to be appointed as the

chairman of PCI since he has misused his position as a Judge of Supreme Court.

A letter (which later became public) written by Shri Dushyant Dave, Senior Advocate,

dated 26th February 2014 to the then Hon’ble Chief Justice of India depicts one of the

instances of his misuse of power. The said letter is annexed as Annexure A.

The letter clearly states that, Justice C K Prasad while hearing a special leave

appeal(crl) no. 7232/20113, ordered to list civil appeal no. 9454-3455/2013 (though he

intended that civil appeal no. was 9454-9455/2010 be listed) as the matter were of

similar nature on his own and without any of the counsels asking for the same.

On the next hearing when matter came up on board, civil petitions were not listed

because of wrong civil appeal no being mentioned in the previous order. The court

again ordered to tie up the matter as urgent.

Both of the matters when came up for hearing on 25th February 2014, at the outset

itself, Justice C K Prasad accepted the submission of Mr. C.U Singh, Senior Advocate

that both the matter are not connected to each other. Despite, there being no

connection, civil appeal no 9454-9455/2010 was taken up and in the absence of any

effective representation from City and Industrial Development Corporation of

Maharashtra (herein after referred as CIDCO) a statutory body, the civil appeal was

allowed without any debate. This was despite the fact that settlement was rejected

earlier by a different bench of the Supreme Court earlier vide order dated 25.04.2013.

This has lead to Mistry Construction to get the respective tender and 35 hectares of

prime land in Pune worth hundreds of crores which was rejected by the Hon’ble

Bombay High Court.

The incident clearly raised eyebrows as a matter was tagged and listed without there

being no similarity and without any party counsel asking for the same. A matter was

disposed off without hearing a statutory body which was a party to the case. It has also

been reliably learnt that Mistry Construction is owned by Justice Prasad’s ex-junior’s in

laws.

This incident shows that Justice C K Prasad is not a fit person to be appointed as a

chairman of PCI. He ought to be prosecuted for his act of criminal misconduct and

corruption, rather than being rewarded by being given an important position. The non-

existence of any transparent and objective procedure, at present, to appoint head of

various councils and commissions is leading to unfit and corrupt people heading

important offices. The practice of appointing any retired judge to office without proper

consultation and procedure leads to erosion of rule of law.

We kindly request you to cancel the appointment of Justice C K Prasad as PCI

chairman and set up an independent body which would exclusively deal with the

appointments of retired judges to important offices. It will also help restore the trust of

people in the credibility of various offices and the judiciary.

Yours Sincerely Prashant Bhushan Convener, CJAR