The Brave Pedestrian

Are judges unduly friendly with big corporates? Last year, Reliance wrote in a letter to former Chief Justice of Bombay High Court KR Vyas: “I am pleased to inform you that your consultancy is further extended for one year i.e. upto April 30, 2015.” The letter reveals that Justice Kshitij Vyas was receiving hefty amounts from Reliance as consultancy. Several other retired Judges who were approached by Dhirubhai’s successors had refused to be on company’s pay roll. Justice Ksh itij R Vyas, formerly Chief Justice of Bombay High Court, was reportedly close to Mukesh Ambani and also the then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi. On recommendations of Modi, Justice Vyas was appointed as the Chairman of the monitoring authority overseeing fake encounters in Gujarat. However in a setback to Modi, Supreme Court removed Justice Vyas from the chair -- a rare snub by the apex court to a former CJ. Reliance Industries Limited gave an appointment letter to Justice (Retd) Kshitij Vyas....

On December 12 2013, J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah tweeted, “If friends in Mumbai are to be believed, it seems the only people who don’t know who was driving the fancy Aston Martin (worth Rs 4.5 crore) are the Mumbai police.” He was hinting at Akash Ambani, son of Mukesh Ambani) Probably that’s when the limelight hit the spot. During the wee hours of Sunday, December 8 2013, a black Ashton Martin Rapide (registration # MH 01 BK 99) belonging to Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Por ts, crashed into an Audi and a Hyundai Elantra, at Pedder Road, Mumbai. The crash killed two people. There was NDTV coverage, Business Standard articles and other ambiguous reports informed about some details of the car crash; More recently, some news pieces made the rounds on how the Mumbai police was not keen on arresting one of Reliance’s driver, Mr. Bhansilal Joshi – who, as per Reliance, was driving the car at that time. But Joshi wasn’t arrested even after a full confession. ...