Justice Sikri turns down govt’s offer amid controversy
A controversy broke out on Sunday over Supreme Court judge Justice A K Sikri getting a government offer last year for a post-retirement assignment at the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat Arbitral Tribunal, just three days after his vote helped decide the removal of Alok Verma from the post of CBI director .
Apparently stung by the controversy, sources said Sikri, the second senior-most judge in the apex court after Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, withdrew his consent to the government offer to nominate him for president/member of the CSAT. Sikri is due to retire on March 6.
The government is understood to have recommended Justice Sikri's name for the Commonwealth Secretariat Arbitral Tribunal (CSAT) late last year. Sikri's consent was “taken orally for a vacancy” in the Commonwealth tribunal, sources said.
Sources told PTI that the consent was withdrawn on Sunday evening when the judge wrote to the Law Ministry, seeking withdrawal of his consent.
The insinuation linking the CSAT assignment with Justice Sikri's participation in the three-member high-powered committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which decided on the ouster of Alok Verma as CBI director, was wrong, they said.
“Since this consent was taken in the first week of December 2018, it has no connection with the CBI matter for which he became the CJI's nominee only in January, 2019,” the sources added.
They said “a totally unjust controversy” has been raised by connecting the two.