Row over Pul suicide continues to simmer

The alleged suicide note of former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Kalikho Pull alleging high-level corruption involving even President Pranab Mukherjee and the Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice Jagdish Sigh Khehar, continues to create.

In the latest move, his widow Dangwimsai Pul wrote another letter on Tuesday to the Supreme Court secretary-general’s office, asking why her February 17 letter to Chief Justice Khehar was put on the judicial side instead of an administrative order being passed.

She has urged the court to give her all relevant details, including the file noting of the Chief Justice, who had referred her earlier letter to be placed before a Bench of Justices A.K. Goel and U.U. Lalit on February 23. She withdrew her petition before this bench and her counsel told the court that the family did not want to deal judicially with the case and had only sought an administrative order for the registration of an FIR against certain sitting and past judges.

Any allegations against sitting judges of the higher judiciary can only be probed by an investigating authority with the permission of the Chief Justice of India. And, if the allegations are against the Chief Justice, the matter has to be placed on the administrative side before the senior-most judge whose name does not figure in the allegations.

In her latest letter, Dangwimsai Pul has questioned why the CJI dealt with her earlier letter instead of sending it to Justi Jasti Chelameswar, the third seniormost judge and not even to Justice Dipak Misra since he was also part of the 5-judge Constitution Bench headed by Justice Khehar that passed a judgment resulting in unseating of her husband as the chief minister.