Agartala: A group of senior lawyers has submitted a memorandum to Chief Justice of Gauhati High Court Justice Madan Bhimarao Lokur demanding transfer of Justice U B Saha from Agartala bench alleging his corrupt practices.
The delegation led by Advocate Arun Chandra Bhowmik met Justice Lokur last week and demanded his immediate intervention in the issue while stating to stop appearing Justice Saha’s Court till conduct of a fair and impartial Inquiry into the allegations.
However, the chief justice had assured the delegation that he would take appropriate action, the lawyers said, adding HC Agartala bench was unnecessarily delaying in furnishing the information under RTI Act related to Justice Saha’s various financial claims and benefits.
The memorandum also underlined that the official record had established Justice Saha’s alleged corruption, as he had made several air travels by executive class for conducting bench.
Moreover, Justice Saha had travelled eight times by business class since 2008 in Agartala-Guwahati route and once in Kolkata-Dimapur route, fare ranging between Rs 13,054 and Rs 18,054.
According to a notification of the Ministry of Law, Justice and Company Affairs issued on September 21, 1999, the High Court Judges were entitled to travel in executive class while traveling by air on Leave Travel Concession (LTC) but not eligible to conduct court in other northeastern states, the memorandum pointed out.
He was also accused of misusing public money by getting reimbursement of local journey bills at an inordinate rate during LTC on several occasions in past three years.
The letter labelled allegation against Justice UB Saha that he influenced former Housing Minister of West Bengal Goutam Deb to receive a plot of land at New Town from the minister’s quota. Justice Saha purchased a plot of land near High Court complex at Bholagiri in Agartala from advocate Sankar Deb and borrowed Rupees six lakh from another advocate Saradindu Chakraborty, who were regularly appearing in Justice Saha’s court, the memorandum informed.
“With the allegations and indictment of Justice U B Saha, the integrity of the Hon’ble Gauhati High Court had been lowered in the estimation of the public in general, calling for free and fair inquiry into the issues,” the memorandum added.
Earlier, another senior advocate and member of the Supreme Court Bar Association Sujit Kumar Datta had lodged complaints against the accused Judge U B Saha to Chief Justice of India (CJI) on August 6.
Questioning Justice Saha’s integrity, honesty and uprightness, Advocate Datta requested the CJI to initiate an inquiry and demanded to shift justice Saha to another High Court other than his present posting to ensure free and fair investigation of his alleged corruption. (UNI)