CAMPAIGN FOR JUDICIAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND REFORM

6/6 Basement, Jangpura B, NEW DELHI-1100014

Tel : 7838211548
judicialreforms@gmail.com , www.judicialreforms.org
Patrons: Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, Justice P.B.Sawant, Justice H. Suresh, Shri Shanti Bhushan, Shri K.G.
Kannabiran, Shri Ajit Bhattacharjea, Prof. B.B.Pande, Admiral R.H. Tahiliani, Dr. Bhaskar Rao,
Ms. Arundhati Roy, Dr. Banwari Lal Sharma, Shri Pradip Prabhu, Prof Babu Mathew, Dr Baba
Adhav, Ms. Kamini Jaiswal, Shri Mihir Desai, Shri Manoj Mitta
Working Committee: Prashant Bhushan, Venkatesh Sundaram, Indu Prakash Singh, D. Leena, Devvrat,
Rohit Kumar Singh, Cheryl DSouza, Pranav Sachdeva
27th November 2014
Mr. Narendra Modi
Prime Minister of India,
Prime Ministers Office,
South Block, New Delhi.
Subject: - Request to cancel the appointment of Honble Mr. Justice C K Prasad as
Chairperson of Press Council of India
Dear Shri Modi,
The Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms is a campaign committed
towards bringing about an accountable and transparent judicial system which is
accessible to every citizen of this country. The Campaign has, since its inception,
highlighted several serious problems with the Indian Judicial System including its lack of
affordability, its inaccessibility to the poor and marginalized, the appointment of its
judges, its elitist and anti-poor bias, the lack of proper redressal mechanisms to address
grievances against judges, inordinate delays in deciding matters and several instances
of corruption in the higher judiciary.
Honble Mr. Justice C K Prasad has been appointed the chairman of Press Council of
India (hereinafter referred as PCI). He is not a fit person to be appointed as the
chairman of PCI since he has misused his position as a Judge of Supreme Court.
A letter (which later became public) written by Shri Dushyant Dave, Senior Advocate,
dated 26th February 2014 to the then Honble Chief Justice of India depicts one of the
instances of his misuse of power. The said letter is annexed as Annexure A.
The letter clearly states that, Justice C K Prasad while hearing a special leave
appeal(crl) no. 7232/20113, ordered to list civil appeal no. 9454-3455/2013 (though he
intended that civil appeal no. was 9454-9455/2010 be listed) as the matter were of
similar nature on his own and without any of the counsels asking for the same.

On the next hearing when matter came up on board, civil petitions were not listed
because of wrong civil appeal no being mentioned in the previous order. The court
again ordered to tie up the matter as urgent.
Both of the matters when came up for hearing on 25th February 2014, at the outset
itself, Justice C K Prasad accepted the submission of Mr. C.U Singh, Senior Advocate
that both the matter are not connected to each other. Despite, there being no
connection, civil appeal no 9454-9455/2010 was taken up and in the absence of any
effective representation from City and Industrial Development Corporation of
Maharashtra (herein after referred as CIDCO) a statutory body, the civil appeal was
allowed without any debate. This was despite the fact that settlement was rejected
earlier by a different bench of the Supreme Court earlier vide order dated 25.04.2013.
This has lead to Mistry Construction to get the respective tender and 35 hectares of
prime land in Pune worth hundreds of crores which was rejected by the Honble
Bombay High Court.
The incident clearly raised eyebrows as a matter was tagged and listed without there
being no similarity and without any party counsel asking for the same. A matter was
disposed off without hearing a statutory body which was a party to the case. It has also
been reliably learnt that Mistry Construction is owned by Justice Prasads ex-juniors in
laws.
This incident shows that Justice C K Prasad is not a fit person to be appointed as a
chairman of PCI. He ought to be prosecuted for his act of criminal misconduct and
corruption, rather than being rewarded by being given an important position. The nonexistence of any transparent and objective procedure, at present, to appoint head of
various councils and commissions is leading to unfit and corrupt people heading
important offices. The practice of appointing any retired judge to office without proper
consultation and procedure leads to erosion of rule of law.
We kindly request you to cancel the appointment of Justice C K Prasad as PCI
chairman and set up an independent body which would exclusively deal with the
appointments of retired judges to important offices. It will also help restore the trust of
people in the credibility of various offices and the judiciary.
Yours Sincerely

Prashant Bhushan
Convener, CJAR