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Justice Manjunath: Seriously miffed with brother & sister judges for not protecting him

Karnataka high court justice KL Manjunath retired on Monday accusing, in his farewell speech, a Supreme Court judge for damaging his prospects of “climbing higher in the judiciary”, reported the Indian Express and others.

Justice Manjunath, who was a judge at the Karnataka high court since December 2000, accused members of the judiciary of launching “a wild campaign” against him to ruin his judicial career, in December 2013, amid rumours that he would be appointed the chief justice of Karnataka.

He was accused of sitting in judgment in a dispute involving property owned by his own daughter, but was later absolved of the charges by a Supreme Court inquiry.

He said in the speech that a “false complaint” was filed against him in October 2013 by one Dr Furqan in Delhi alleging that he has “amassed wealth” and this was followed by the publication of similar allegation in a “one-off magazine Crime” published from Kerala and circulated widely around India “at the instance of a judge of the Karnataka high court and his son”.

In May 2014 when his name was cleared for transfer to the Punjab and Haryana high court a new campaign was launched against him after a former chief justice of Karnataka – now an SC sitting judge – wrote to the Chief Justice of India and a PIL was filed against him by Tamil Nadu lawyers.

He said that despite the SC not finding substance in the allegations against him, the members of the collegiums kept his file pending for over 10 months.

Manjunath had also been targeted by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) late last year for allegedly having failed to declare his assets and amassing disproportionate wealth, while local lawyers went on strike to defend his reputation.

Full text of Manjunath's speech via The Hindu and a reader in the comments below:

Justice Manjunath speech, via The Hindu

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