In a big relief to Justice V Eshwaraiah, former Andhra Pradesh high court judge, the Supreme Court on Monday struck down the state high court order initiating a probe into his telephonic conversations with a suspended district munsif magistrate Ramakrishna.
A division bench of the Supreme Court comprising justice Ashok Bhushan and justice R Subhash Reddy was hearing a petition of Eshwaraiah challenging an order passed by the state high court calling for a probe into his telephonic conversations with Ramakrishna.
The apex court set aside the high court order stating that it was not warranted. It asked the high court to consider the entire matter afresh.
The high court had ordered an inquiry into the conversation which allegedly disclosed some material about a plot against the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court and a sitting judge of the Supreme Court.
The order by the high court was passed in an intervention application filed by a suspended District Munsif Magistrate Ramakrishna in an unrelated public interest litigation petition seeking implementation of Covid-19 guidelines in the high court.
Eshwaraiah, who is the chairman of AP state higher education regulatory and monitoring commission, said the allegations of conspiracy and a plot against the judiciary derived from the contents of the conversation were basically white lies, derogatory and defamatory to him.
In his plea before the Supreme Court, Eswaraiah pointed out that the inquiry into the conversation was ordered by the high court on the basis of the intervention application without even allowing the intervention and without notice to him.
In his affidavit, the former judge stated that "the voice in the conversation appears to be mine" and "hence the part what I have purported to say is correct."
He said Ramakrishna had called him over WhatsApp on July 20, 2020, but he was not aware from which phone number he had called.
“WhatsApp is end to end encrypted and thus recording of call is not possible. However, the recording proves that an external device was used to record the conversation," he stated in the affidavit.
Eswaraiah also alleged that the audio clip was leaked to a news channel to tarnish his image and to defame him.
However, he also stated that it was possible that "audio conversation as in the pen-drive may not be the exact conversation which took place and it is possible that some parts of conversation were edited out."
He also maintained that the conversation in question was a private one and that the high court had passed the order without issuing notice to Justice Eswaraiah and without hearing his side.
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