Gopal Subramanium speaks to NDTV
The decision to drop former Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium from a list of four names for appointment as Supreme Court judges was cleared by President Pranab Mukherjee and the Prime Minister, said sources.
The government source denied that the rejection of Mr Subramanium's name, had anything to do with the position taken by him in a case of alleged murder registered against BJP general secretary Amit Shah, as alleged by the senior lawyer.
"The government has enough material to make out a case for reconsidering his name. The President and Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the decision,'' the source said.
In a letter addressed to the Chief Justice of India, Mr Subramanium, 56, withdrew his candidature, and accused the government of indulging in a "dirt-digging exercise.'' He also alleged that he was being targeted for "displaying integrity and independence" in the case relating to Mr Shah, a top aide to the new Prime Minister.
Tracing the sequence of events leading to the reconsideration of Mr Subramanium's name, the sources pointed out that it was, in fact, the President who had received a complaint against him, and this complaint was forwarded to the government.
In recent weeks, newspapers have run a series of stories based on leaked intelligence reports, including one suggesting that Mr Subramanium had accepted membership to an expensive health club paid by a defendant in the telecom scam.
Rejecting the former solicitor generals charge sources also said this was not the first time a name had been segregated from the list of probable Supreme Court judges. "It had happened in the Jammu and Kashmir, Allahabad and the Andhra Pradesh High Courts in 2012, and the Madras High Court in 2013. The same thing had happened in the Supreme Court during the UPA government too,'' the sources argued, adding that it was not fair to stop the elevation of other probable because of one name.
Mr Subramanium resigned as Solicitor General in 2011 after the UPA government appointed a private lawyer to fight the 2G case in court.