Twist in Justice Sen tale: Somnath writes to Ansari on ‘certain things’

“Yes,I have written to the Vice President about the matter concerning Justice Soumitra Sen. There were certain things that needed to be brought to his notice. But I can’t tell you anything more. You ask the Vice President,” he told The Indian Express.

Sources said that in his letter,the former Speaker has questioned the move to impeach Sen. The facts that he is learnt to have highlighted support Sen’s defence against the impeachment motion.

The motion to impeach Sen,which was admitted on February 27,seeks his removal for “misappropriating large sums of money which he received in his capacity as receiver appointed by the (Calcutta) High Court and misrepresenting facts with regard to the misappropriation before the High Court.”

In his legal opinion,Union Law Secretary T K Vishwanathan had said that there were sufficient grounds to proceed against Sen.

A three-member committee comprising Supreme Court Judge B Sudershan Reddy,Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice Tirath Singh Thakur and jurist Fali Nariman was constituted on March 20 under the Judges (Inquiry) Act,1968 to consider the charges and evidence against Sen,and recommend further action.

The decision to constitute the committee was taken after 58 Rajya Sabha members,following up on a move initiated by CPM MP Brinda Karat,moved the impeachment motion against Sen on the basis of a recommendation sent by Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in August last year.

The committee has held two preliminary meetings.

The links between Chatterjee and Sen have been a matter of speculation ever since former CPM MP Varkala Radhakrishanan questioned the now-aborted move to table the impeachment motion in the previous Lok Sabha,alleging Sen was once a colleague of Chatterjee’s son.

“The Calcutta High Court Judge was practising in the chambers of Somnath Chatterjee’s son,who is a lawyer,when he was appointed a court receiver,” Radhakrishanan had told The Indian Express then. Following this,the motion was moved in the Rajya Sabha.

In June,Sen’s lawyer wrote a letter to remove Fali Nariman from the committee on the ground that the jurist had openly spoken against Sen and expressed his opinion in favour of impeachment.

In 1993,when he was court-appointed receiver in a lawsuit between Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) and Shipping Corporation of India over the supply of firebricks,Sen had deposited Rs 32 lakh in his personal account. Under the law,he was to deposit the money in a bank account of his choice for safe custody.

He retained the money even after being elevated to the High Court in 2003,and parted with it only after the HC ordered him to do so in April 2006. Finally,he was forced to return Rs 52 lakh — Rs 32 lakh as principal,and the rest as interest — to SAIL.