New Delhi, 4 May. The Supreme Court has hit out at its own registry office, terming its attitude as “inappropriate” and saying that its officials consider themselves “super CJI” (Chief Justice). A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi made the remarks while hearing the bail plea filed by Ayushi Mittal alias Ayushi Agarwal, accused in an alleged investment fraud of over Rs 37,000 crore. The Chief Justice cited an order passed on March 23 on the petition and wondered how the registry authorities understood that the bench did not issue notice to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and other respondents on the petition.
The Chief Justice said, “The Registry has behaved completely inappropriately. This attitude of the Registry is absolutely not right… Every person sitting here considers himself ‘Super Chief Justice of India’.” “No notice has been issued to the ED director and it is stated that no such order was passed. Let the judicial registrar (of the top court) make a fact-finding as to how our order of March 23 is meant to not issue a notice to the ED. Notice be sent to the Enforcement Directorate,” the bench said in its fresh order. Petitioner Ayushi Mittal, her husband and their company are accused of committing large-scale investment fraud.
The defense claims that a major portion of the funds have been returned to investors, but currently several hundred crores of rupees are stuck in bank accounts ‘frozen’ by the ED. In its order dated March 23, the bench had accepted the oral request by the counsel for the Rajasthan government, a party in the case, to implead the ED in the proceedings. Its purpose was to determine whether all movable and immovable properties belonging to the petitioner and his family had been duly attached or not. The bench reiterated that it would not consider the merits of the bail plea until “detailed details” of the assets were provided.
The court had ordered the legal representative appearing for the petitioner to file an affidavit giving detailed details of the immovable properties of the petitioner, her husband, their children, parents, siblings and in-laws. The court had also sought details of the assets of the directors, managers and key employees of the company. The bench had said, “Until these complete details are provided, we will not consider the bail plea.” The Judicial Registrar is tasked with investigating administrative lapses within the registry to determine why previous court instructions were ignored. The bench said it would list the petition some day in May.
Comments are closed.