HC turns down Kerala's govt's plea to spare sitting judge

Kerala High Court today turned down the plea of the state government to provide the service of a sitting judge for conducting judicial probe into the solar panel scam which had rocked the state since the past two months.
The decision in this regard was conveyed by Registrar General N Anil Kumar by fax to the Chief Secretary E K Bharat Bhushan today.
An administrative committee meeting consisting Chief Justice
Manjula Chellur and four senior Judges had on August 26 taken the decision not to spare a judge.
Eventhough no reasons were attributed for declining the state's plea, according to sources deficiency of judges and mounting arrears of cases were the reasons to reject the demand.

The administrative committee also referred to a Supreme Court judgement of 2009 when the then Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justice Arjit Passayat to the effect in 'no (no) cases sitting judges of any high court can continue as commission'.
The government ordered probe by a sitting judge on August 13 after thousands of supporters of the CPI(M) led Opposition Left Democratic front launched a siege of the secretariat.
Following the announcement, the siege had been called off.