CBI Gets Allahabad High Court's Sanction To Prosecute Former Judge Justice SN Shukla In Medical College Bribery Case

The Allahabad High Court has granted its sanction to the CBI to prosecute its former Judge, Justice SN Shukla, in the medical college bribery case, reported the NDTV.

The CBI has alleged that Justice Shukla took illegal gratification for passing a favourable order in matter regarding Prasad Institute of Medical Science, Lucknow.

With this sanction, CBI can now moved ahead and prosecute Justice SN Shukla.

The allegation against him was that he permitted a private medical college to admit students for academic year 2017-18, despite orders against it by the Medical Council of India and the Supreme Court.

As per the FIR, a conspiracy was hatched between BP Yadav, Chairman, Prasad Educational Trust, former judge Justice IM Quddusi, Bhawana Pandey, a private person through Sudhir Giri of Venkateshwara Medical College (Meerut) in order to obtain a favourable order from Justice Narayan Shukla at Lucknow Bench by corrupt and illegal means.

The FIR registered also names former judge of Orissa High Court Justice IM Quddusi and they have been booked under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code along with Sections 7, 8, 12, and 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

As per the requirement of the PC Act, the CBI had earlier this year applied before the High Court seeking its nod to prosecute the retired judge. In the year 2019, CBI had even conducted raids at the premises of Justice Shukla.

Justice S. N. Shukla, a judge of Allahabad High Court retired on 17 July 2020. However, at the time of his retirement he was not being assigned any judicial work. In fact, all judicial work had been taken away from him following the orders of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in January 2018.

The move had come after a three-judge in-house committee formed by CJI had returned its findings against Justice Shukla.

A complaint was made to the CJI in 2017, following which CJ Misra had constituted an in-house committee comprising Madras High Court Chief Justice Indira Banerjee, Sikkim High Court CJ SK Agnihotri and Madhya Pradesh HC judge PK Jaiswal.

The inquiry committee had found that Justice Shukla had "disgraced the values of judicial life, acted in a manner unbecoming of a judge, lowered the majesty, dignity and credibility of his office".

Armed with this report, the then CJI, Misra had then, on 2 February 2018 written to the President's Secretariat, requesting them to initiate removal proceedings against the Judge.

Further, in June 2019, the Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had written to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi about initiating an impeachment motion in Parliament for removal of Justice Shukla.