A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde took note of the letter of Delhi High Court’s Registrar General that the permission be granted to nominate or post another suitable presiding judicial officer as Special Judge in place of Parashar.
PTI
March 15, 2021 / 10:52 PM IST
Supreme Court
The Supreme Court Monday asked the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court to provide names of five trial court judges of high caliber and absolute integrity for appointing one of them as the special judge to replace Bharat Prasahar who has been conducting trials in coal scam cases here since 2014. The top court in 2014 had quashed 214 coal blocks allocated by the Centre between 1993 and 2010 and had ordered conducing of trial by a special CBI Judge.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde took note of the letter of Delhi High Court’s Registrar General that the permission be granted to nominate or post another suitable presiding judicial officer as Special Judge in place of Parashar.
We find that Bharat Parashar who has acted as a Special Judge (PC Act), (CBI)-07, Patiala House Court, New Delhi, needs to be replaced, as he has now completed more than 6 years in the same post after having been posted as Special Judge in the above mentioned court since 19.08.2014.
We accordingly request the Chief Justice, Delhi High Court to give us a panel of names of about five judges of a high caliber and absolute integrity to enable us to suggest an appropriate replacement for Bharat Parashar, Special Judge, said the bench which also comprised justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.
The bench took note of the submission of special public prosecutor R S Cheema that the law contemplates the disposal of the such cases has to be ensured in two years which may be extended upto four times by periods of six months each.
It took note of the fact that Parashar has been acting as the special judge since 2014 and his replacement is now needed and fixed the case after two weeks to consider the names to be provided by the Chief Justice of the High Court.
