“The process started long before the system was changed,” he said.
New Delhi:
Recently retired Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit said today that he had appeared for Home Minister Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case, but it was “inevitable” as he was never the chief counsel.
In response to a question from NDTV, he said, “It is true that I appeared for Amit Shah, but it was unimportant as the lead counsel was Mr. Ram Jethmalani.”
Justice Lalit also pointed out that after the government changed in May 2014, he was first asked to represent Mr Shah in April while the earlier government was in power.
“The process started long before the system was changed,” he said.
“I was briefed in this case, but I was never the main counsel. I appeared for Shah’s co-accused, but not in the main case, but in a secondary case,” he said.
Before his elevation as a judge in August 2014, Justice Lalit was an advocate in several high-profile and controversial cases. He represented Amit Shah in the alleged fake encounter killings of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati in Gujarat.
UU Lalit was the counsel for Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah when Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s government was accused of covering up the alleged fake encounter killings of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kauserbi and aide Tulsiram Prajapati.
Justice Lalit’s elevation as a judge had come under scrutiny in 2014 after the newly formed BJP government under PM Modi sent back the recommendation of former Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam for the judiciary. Mr Lalit was reportedly appointed as a Supreme Court judge as a replacement for Mr Subramaniam, whose name was sent back for reconsideration by the BJP-led government.
Mr Subramaniam had then alleged that he was being targeted for displaying “independence and integrity” for his role in assisting the court in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case.
In an unprecedented move, the then CJI RM Lodha had gone on record to say that the BJP-led government had “shunted” Mr Subramaniam’s file “unilaterally” and without his knowledge and consent.
Justice Lalit was the second person after Justice RF Nariman, also a former Solicitor General, to become a Supreme Court judge directly from the bar in nearly two decades.