No govt action till a case is filed against Balakrishnan: Moily

The government is taking a cautious stand in the fresh allegations made against former Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan, who was previously accused of amassing wealth disproportionate to his income. Speaking to CNN-IBN, Law Minister Veerappa Moily said that for the government to initiate any action against the former CJI, first a case has to be filed against him. “There is a rule of law, there is a procedure and that procedure needs to be followed. Someone has to file a prosecution, and then procedure will be followed. Let them take the appropriate process; that itself will answer the question,” Moily said on Thursday.

The Left also came to Balakrishnan’s defence this morning, pointing fingers at retired Kerala High Court Justice PK Shamsuddin, who in an interview with Firstpost said he was once approached by a Bangalore-based person to facilitate an introduction to Balakrishnan’s son or son-in-law to fix a case in the Supreme Court. “Independent of allegations made now, there were allegations in the past. But whether the present allegations are credible needs to be examined. Why is Shamsuddin making the allegations now? If he has made the allegations, he must come clean on who approached him,” said D Raja, National Secretary, CPI(M).

Balakrishnan has denied the allegations , calling them baseless.

On June 15, Shamsuddin had hit out at KG Balakrishnan in a Firstpost interview saying he was approached by a Bangalore-based person asking Shasuddin to introduce him to the former CJI’s kin to fix a case, but refused to name the person. Till then, said Shamsuddin, he was unaware that KGB was “approachable”.

PK Shamsuddin is a retired Kerala High Court Justice, and a Gandhian who served with the former CJI. In the interview, he said the  government is going slow in its probe against KGB and that he should resign as the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission and prove his innocence.