Time&Tide

What we found out next just blew us over.

Another set of documents showed that for a period of ten months, the three companies run from Sabharwal’s Punjabi Bagh house, had also been registered at 6 Motilal Nehru Place, the official residence of Justice Sabharwal at a time when he was one of the senior most judges of the Supreme Court.

The companies had filed three individual Form 18 with the Department of Company Affairs on January 6, 2004, giving notice that the situation of their registered office had changed from 3/81 Punjabi Bagh to 6 Motilal Nehru Place. After ten months, on October 23, 2004, the companies’ registered office was once again shifted back to 3/81, Punjabi Bagh.

We knew then, that we had a watertight case. While Delhiites were being made to face demolition squads, lathis, and bullets for running commercial establishments from their homes, here was the case of a former CJI who had blithely used his government-allotted bungalow for his sons’ companies. Nothing could ever justify this transgression of law by a keeper of the law.

Still, to be doubly sure, we checked out the requirements for a registered office under the Registration of Companies Act. The Act clearly specified that the registered office of a company had to be a physical entity where crucial documents relating to the company needed to be available at all times. A registered office could not be a mere postal address.

City Editor M K Tayal and I rummaged the net for information on Pawan Impex and Sab Exports and once we had the addresses of the two companies, we paid them a visit with Rajeev Tyagi and his trusted camera.

We had no idea of what to expect when we left our office for Sab Exports and Pawan Impex. Till then, these were just names, painted on the letter box of a modest house in Punjabi Bagh.  Our first sight of the sprawling buildings, sitting on massive chunk of real estate in Noida, was mindboggling. It took all of Tyagi’s skills to get a wide shot of Sab Exports, so large was its frontage. From our web search, we knew the companies were in the business of garments export.

It was time to catch the bull by the horns. We first called up 3/81. The phone was received by Sabharwal’s older brother, Jagmohan. After we introduced ourselves as MiD DAY reporters, we asked him whether the three companies whose names were on the letterbox, Pawan Impex, Sug Exports and Sab Exports, were being run from the premises. He said the house was only a ‘postal address’ for the companies. “It is a postal address. It is for the purpose of receiving post that the registered office is there. No commercial activity takes place here,” he said.

We then called up the former CJI from the office phone with a recorder attached to it. Sabharwal was not home and the person who received our call said he had gone out for a walk and would be back soon.

The story was scheduled for the morning edition and our deadline was knocking on the door. As minutes ticked by and Sabharwal did not return our call, we called him once again. This time, the former CJI came on the line, the one and only time we managed to speak with him. Justice Sabharwal asserted that the house was only a postal address for the three companies. When Tayal pointed out to him that the registered offices of the three companies were also shifted to his official bungalow at 6 Motilal Nehru Place for nearly ten months, he denied any knowledge of this. “I don’t know whether it was ever shifted (from Punjabi Bagh to Motilal Nehru Place) or not. Who told you it was shifted? I don’t think it was shifted. When was it shifted? Give me the dates,” Sabharwal said. “I cannot help it if nobody understands the legal point. The postal address is not barred anywhere. Letters come. Registered office (of the three companies) is for postal purposes,” he added. When asked if the shifting of the registered office to his official residence as a Supreme Court judge at 6,Motilal Nehru Place was legal, Justice Sabharwal hung up.

Tayal was left holding the phone with a long beep signalling the premature end of our only interaction with Justice Sabharwal.

The Supreme Court bench, headed by the then CJI Sabharwal, had said on November 7, 2006 :

“None can be permitted to place a dagger on the neck of the person and seek relief. None can be permitted to hold the city, law and order, and the law abiding citizens to ransom and then ask for relief.”

“Is this governance?It is their (the government’s) manner of handling the issue which is causing harassment to the residents of Delhi. Every time you issue notification a day before, you bring to nought the orders of this court. This lip service should stop.”

On February 16, 2006, the court had said: “This court can not remain a mute spectator when the violations also affect the environment and healthy living of law-abiders.”

If the court could not be a mute spectator to violations of the law, why were we, in the media, expected to remain mute when confronted with similar violations by a former Supreme Court judge, who had held the highest judicial seat of the country as CJI?

Our story was complete, well researched, and backed by impeccable proof. It was also ready a few minutes shy of the deadline for the launch of the Delhi edition. We hit the stands on May 2, 2007, with a tale which for the first time ever, gave conclusive evidence that there was something rotten in the state of our courts. As became our practice from then on, we published the documents which proved each of the charges made in our expose. Truth would be our defence.

Next – Invisible Ink

To be continued