Senior Bhushan gets Supreme Court to expunge remarks against AK Agrawal in “SEBI Chief” judgment

The Supreme Court on Friday last week expunged the adverse remarks made against petitioner Arun Kumar Agrawal in its judgment dated November 1, 2013 by which it had dismissed the petition challenging the appointment of SEBI Chief UK Sinha..A Bench comprising Justices SS Nijjar and Pinaki Chandra Ghose, however, refused to remove the remarks made against IAS officer KM Abraham and also refused to hear out the counsel representing Abraham. It however, clarified in its order that the remarks made against Abraham were only for the purpose of the case and shall not affect his service career..The Bench was hearing interim applications filed by Agrawal and Abraham seeking to expunge adverse remarks made against them in the judgment. While Agrawal claimed that the remarks against him were incorrect, Abraham’s claim was that the observations about him had been made without even hearing him and therefore, should be removed..The refusal of Justice Nijjar to hear the counsel for Abraham, Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan when the hearing commenced was followed by Senior Counsel Shanti Bhushan’s vociferous protest against the impugned remarks which he argued were factually incorrect and baseless. Senior Bhushan’s vocal arguments had a visible effect on the Bench which then asked Bhushan to calm down. To this Bhushan replied that he was very agitated by the presence of such remarks in the judgment..The Court, after seeking the opinion of Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran proceeded to expunge those observations in the judgment to the effect that Agrawal’s bona fides was questionable and that he had filed the petition on the behest of some other interested party. Subsequently, the Court also clarified that the remarks made against Abraham were only for the purpose of the case and shall not affect his service career..It is interesting to note that such incidents of Judges refusing to hear out parties has caused a certain amount of tension between advocates and judges in the recent past. Senior Counsel Rajeev Dhavan had made some strong remarks against Justice GS Singhvi during the hearing of Radia Tapes matter in November last year, with the latter eventually recusing from the case.