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Judge surrenders before court in corruption case

Our correspondent

Almost six months after his first petition was rejected by the Bombay high court, suspended sessions court judge and proclaimed offender J W Singh Wednesday appeared before the HC, and thereafter surrendered himself to the police.

He will be produced before Trial Judge A P Bhangale on Thursday.

In probably the first of such cases in Indian history, the city police accuses Singh of granting judicial favours to the underworld. He allegedly was in touch with the infamous don Chhota Shakeel to recover around Rs 3.5 million he was owed by one Sardarsing Abrol. According to the police, Singh let off two Shakeel aides in his official capacity to avail of the gang's service to recover his money.

The police claim to have the tapes of conversation between Shakeel and Singh, through a conduit, advocate Liyakat Shaikh, who has been since murdered. After the tapes were obtained in April 1999, the police filed a complaint from Sardarsing Abrol and his son, Dara. They claimed that they had been phoned by one Pydhonie, who said he was calling on behalf of Shakeel. They were asked to pay up the judge's dues, from an illegal chit fund, or face the "consequences''.

Whereupon, the police slapped the draconian Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act on Singh, and filed their FIR by October 1999.

While the first petition challenging the application of the Act was dismissed by the HC, Singh obtained another direction to the high court to hear the matter all over again from the Supreme Court in January. By then the city police had filed applications in the trial court before Judge Bhangale seeking that he be declared a proclaimed offender. Also, to have his property, valued at around Rs 10 million, attached.

The attachments were done last month and he has been declared a proclaimed offender.

Early this month, when Singh asked for an exemption from personally appearing in the trial, Judge Bhangale demanded that he be present in court. Similarly, when the fresh petition came up for hearing before the high court, the division bench of Justices P S Patankar and R J Kochar asked that he be present in court on Wednesday.

Accordingly, Singh presented himself, clad in a blue safari suit, and under the court direction, surrendered to the Sion police.

The 'arrest' of Singh too was dramatic, with him walking out of the courtroom and being 'formally' arrested by Assistant Commissioner of Police Chavan. Singh.

Singh, for his part, has presented three applications before Judge Bhangale: he has asked for an in-camera trial, a revocation of the earlier orders of a nonbailable warrant and attachment of property, and that home-made food, bedding etc be allowed to him in prison.

While Bhangale granted the last application, the other two are yet to be heard and will be decided on April 6.

Judge Bhangale will listen to Singh's lawyers Thursday at 1300 hours IST. The petition challenging the MCOCA will be decided on March 31.

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