IMPORTANT POINTS
Bar under section 20 does not apply in case of suo motu contempt under Article 129.
Commission appointed under 1952 Act is not a court.
Merely because a Commission of Inquiry is headed by a sitting Judge of Supreme Court it does not become an extended arm of Supreme Court.

JUDGMENT

R.M. LODHA, CJI.

1. In the issue of Indian Express of August 13, 1990, an editorial was published bearing the caption "If shame had survived". The editorial reads as under:

"If shame had survived"

The legal opinion that the former Chief Justice of India, Mr. Y. V. Chandrachud, has given on the Kuldip Singh Commission's report is a stunning indictment. Succinct, understated to the point of being deferential, scrupulously adhering to facts and law, eschewing completely the slightest attribution of any motive to the Commission, the opinion is a model of rectitude.

Nothing in the report survives it "evidence" that it was agreed would not be pressed relied on as a fulcrum; evidence of the one witness who was the hub of the decisions wholly disregarded; indictments framed on "probable possibility", theories invented to read meanings into documents and the manifest, straightforward explanation ignored; the Commission itself as well as the energetic prosecutor himself declaring one day that neither had a shred of evidence which cast a doubt on Hegde and the very next day declaring a conclusion; refusing to common witnesses for cross-examination on the pretext that the Commission did not have the power to call them - this in the face of clear judgments to the contrary; then invoking a section of the Indian Evidence Act which applies to a person making a dying declaration; ignoring the fact that the man who is said to have been benefited has lost Rs.55 lakh which he deposited; insinuating - and building an entire indictment on the insinuation - that the builder had fabricated a front, when the actual record shows that he was doing everything openly and with all the formalities which the law required; ignoring the fact that the land was to be given to the builder at three times the cost of acquisition and that on top of it development charges were to be levied from 4 to 6 times the cost of acquisition; ignoring entirely the fact that the land was never transferred and that it was not transferred solely because of the then Chief Minister's insistence that rules be framed under which all such cases would be dealt with.

It is the longest possible list of suppresso veri suggesto falsi. If there had been any sense of honour or shame, a Judge would never have done any of this. If there were any residual sense of honour or shame, the Judge having done any of it and having been found doing it, would have vacated his seat. But this is India. Of 1990, the Commissioner Kuldip Singh having perpetrated such perversities will continue to sit in judgment on the fortunes and reputations of countless citizens. He will continue to do so from nothing less than the Supreme Court of India itself. Such is our condition.

And so helpless are we that there is nothing we can do about such a "Judge". Save one thing. The only way to mitigate the injuries that such persons inflict on citizens is for all of us to thoroughly examine the indictments or certificates they hand out. Only that exercise will show up these indictments and certificates for the perversities which they are and only in that way can their effect be diluted. "Who has the time to read voluminous reports, to sift evidence?" But if the issue is important enough for us to form an opinion on it, it is our duty to find the time to examine such reports, to examine as well the conduct of the commissioners who perpetrate them."

2. It so happened that Justice Kuldip Singh, the then sitting Judge of the Supreme Court, was appointed as Chairman, Commission of Inquiry under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952 (hereinafter referred to as 1952 Act') to probe into alleged acts of omissions and commissions by Shri Ramakrishna Hegde, the former Chief Minister of Karnataka. The one man Commission headed by Justice Kuldip Singh submitted its report on 22.06.1990.

3. These two contempt matters, one by Dr. Subramanian Swamy v. Arun Shourie, Contempt Petition (Crl.) No.11 of 1990 and the In the matter of Mr. Arun Shour