Supreme Court stays Madras High Court suspension order on RK Chandramohan

The Supreme Court yesterday stayed the Madras High Court order, suspending advocate R K Chandramohan's status as member and consequently as chairman of the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry on the basis of a letter written by justice R Regupathi to the then High Court chief justice HL Gokhale, over an alleged incident that happened in his chambers.

A bench comprising justices D K Jain and H Dattu, acting on a special leave petition filed by Chandramohan also stayed the direction given to the Bar Council of India to take over the complaint filed against him and to dispose of it in accordance with law.

Earlier, senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Chandramohan said the High Court had pronounced the judgment without putting it on record and treating justice Regupathi's letter as the gospel truth. He questioned as to what could be scope of an enquiry into the complaint when it had been decided at the preliminary stage itself.

 Justifying the judgement, Elephant G Rajendran, on whose petitions the High Court gave the directions said the appellant had interfered with the administration of justice. At that juncture, justice Jain asked the counsel, how a quo warranto writ petition would lie in the case and at the most it could be a case for contempt.

The case would come up for further hearing in the first week of January.

Chandramohan, in his SLP says, the High Court was not justified in accepting justice Regupathi's letter as evidence against him without following the mandatory requirements of law.