Ex-Chief Justice of India (CJI) Altamas Kabir denied any knowledge of an alleged leak of the NEET judgment presided over by Kabir in a CNN-IBN interview with a typically combative Karan Thapar.

On 18 July, several hours before the Supreme Court’s judgment in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) case, advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan had written a column accurately predicting the outcome of the case, that Justice Dave would dissent and the number of pages of the judgment, as reported on Legally India at the time.

“I wouldn’t know because I don’t know that it was leaked. I have no knowledge whatsoever,” Kabir said when asked by Thapar whether the NEET judgment was leaked.

Kabir added: “Who gains by the mistake? Number one. And number two is, how did he know Justice Dave was going to dissent? […] Suppose it was leaked from my chamber […] where the judgment was prepared […] how did anybody know that Justice Dave would dissent. My view is it was simply some sort of a speculation.”

So it was a coincidence that it was predicted so accurately, probed Thapar.

“Not very accurately,” responded Kabir. “What he did predict to some extent was true, that it would be about 190 pages. Apart from that…”

Thapar interrupted Kabir that three predictions were correct, also including the gist of the verdict. Kabir reiterated that the fact that “Justice Dave was going to dissent was something that was not known to us [Kabir] till the very end”. After Thapar pressed Kabir, the former CJI insisted that he was “absolutely” sure that the leak, if any, did not come from his own chambers.

Jaiprakash

Kabir also defended himself against his stay in the Jaiprakash case, that his successor P Sathasivam criticised earlier this week.

Kabir told Thapar that both Sathasivam and his NEET co-bencher Justice Gogoi denied personally to Kabir that they had said what had been reported. He also said that he would “take some kind of positive steps”, get the judges’ words in writing and if “necessary take it up to the Times of India”.

He agreed that he was both, in the words of Thapar, “embarrassed and annoyed”, by the episode.

Press release

Kabir had issued a press release on Wednesday alleging media bias in several stories about him in the Times of India and the Indian Express.

Kabir said he was forced to issue the release after the “frontline news” in the Indian Express appeared – a report regarding the Gujarat high court chief justice that Kabir had been biased in not elevating him to the Supreme Court, explained Thapar.

Are you being picked upon by the media, asked Thapar. After a pause, Kabir responded, “I would certainly say so from a certain section.”

How did Kabir feel about former colleague judges potentially leaking stories about him? “I wouldn’t want to comment. If there is, I am sorry to hear that such a thing would have happened, but I never would have expected any of my colleagues to do this.”

Kabir said that apart from one of his enemies, Prashanth Bhushan, members of the press might also be against him. While the Indian Express story was not malicious but more likely came out of ignorance, the Times of India was actually motivated.

Thapar brought up Times of India legal correspondent Dhananjay Mahapatra, who was “very highly regarded”, which Kabir agreed with, and asked whether he had an axe to grind with Kabir?

Kabir claimed that Mahaptra was writing things that “were good” while Kabir was in office, but at the same time, “he did want an interview with me, and I said no … that could be one of the reasons. I couldn’t fathom anything else.”

Full 25 minute interview on IBN Live