Dipak Misra was working under influence of an “external source”: ex-SC judge Kurian Joseph

Just days after retiring, former Supreme Court judge Kurian Joseph has dropped a bombshell claiming ex-Chief Justice Dipak Misra was “remote-controlled by an external source”, an explosive accusation that, he said, impacted the administration of justice.Justice(retd) Joseph was among the four senior judges of the apex court who staged an open revolt against justice Misra by convening an unprecedented press conference on January 12 to flag their concerns about preferential allocation of sensitive cases to judges low down on the top court’s hierarchy. Justices J Chelameswar, who has since retired, Ranjan Gogoi, the current Chief Justice and Madan Lokur were the other judges.The Congress Monday said Justice Joseph’s remarks proved its allegations against the government of interference in the highest levels of judiciary, and demanded separate parliamentary and judicial inquiries into the matter. There was no immediate reaction from the government or the BJP to Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s claims of alleged interference made at a press conference.”The then CJI was working under some influence of some external source. He was remote-controlled by an external source. There was some influence of some external source that was impacting the administration of justice,” Justice Joseph told PTI. Joseph retired on November 29.There was no immediate reaction from Justice Misra.Asked about the basis on which he was making his claim, Justice Joseph said this was the perception among the judges, who went public over issues dogging the apex court, as well as among other judges of the court.He refused to elaborate on who the external source was and the cases where there was a bias and administration of justice affected.Pressed again on whether the alleged influence was exerted by some political party or the government in any particular case, Justice Joseph said the judges were only of the view that there was some bias by the judge concerned.
He said there was no need to make a reference to any particular case.”I am sorry. I don’t want to take it any forward,” he said.A former CJI, who did not want to be named, said it is for Justice Joseph to come out with the basis on which he has levelled serious allegations against Justice Misra.