Alleging Dalit atrocity, top advocate Prashan Bhushan seeks Supreme Court CJ intervention against Andhra judge

Prashan Bhushan

By A Representative
Senior Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan, convenor, Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CJAR), has created a flutter in India's top judicial echelons by charging an Andhra Pradesh High Court judge of allegedly committing atrocities against members of the Dalit community.
Bhushan has made the allegation in a letter to chief justice of India TS Thakur, which he had written on August 30, 2016. The letter was made public by Bhushan on Tuesday evening. While Bhushan says that he was releasing the letter because no action has been taken so far, he does not say why India's chief justice, if at all, did not act.
The most serious charge leveled by Bhushan concerns a case of how the dying declaration made by the servant of the brother of the judge was sought to be removed from the records. In this declaration, the servant had disclosed the entire story of how he was doused with kerosine and set on fire for not agreeing to sign on a blank paper.
The dying declaration, says Bhushan, was handed over by the Duty Medical Officer, Government Area Hospital, Rayachoty, to the then magistrate, Rama Krishna, Rayachoty, Kadappa District. Krishna belongs to the Dalit community.
Earlier, on August 10, 2016, eight Members of Parliament (MPs) had written a similar letter to the Chief Justice of India detailing alleged “atrocities” against Krishna. Kadappa district is the native place of the High Court judge, whose brother is the additional public prosecutor at Rayachoti courts.
Asking Thakur to initiate In House proceedings against the Andhra Pradesh high court judge after fully examining the case, Bhushan says, such judges “undermine popular confidence in the administration of justice.”
Attaching the copy of the dying declaration and other documents, some of them obtained through the right to information (RTI) channel, Bhushan says, when Krishna refused to accede to the demand to remove the dying declaration, “an altercation occurred” between the judge and the Krishna.
Krishna, says Bhushan, has alleged that during the altercation, the judge “kicked him with his shoes and abused his caste.” While Krishna lodged a police complaint, the police refused to lodge an FIR against the judge.
This made Krishna go to the High Court Vigilance Registrar and gave a written complaint, stating and naming various officers of court at Rayachoty, who are allgedly performing “illegal” acts, misplacing court records and making files disappear. Yet, “no action was taken by the High Court on the said complaint”, says Bhushan.
Krishna, says Bhushan, filed another complaint with the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, after which an affidavit was sent to the chief justice of India seeking their intervention.
Meanwhile, Krishna was transferred to Chintapalli, Vishakapatnam district, and thereafter, based on an anonymous complaint of corruption, was placed under suspension, says Bhushan.
He further says, the High Court in its inquiry report decided to drop the proceeding and also to revoke the suspension order and reinstate him into service, the revocation order was “never implemented” and the “suspension order with fresh charges of misconduct was issued” against Krishna.
Bhushan in his letter also refers to a local NGO Gadikot Dalitha Nyayaporata Committee, coming up with a pamphlet enumerating various instances of atrocity against the Dalit community by the family of the High Court judge in Rayachoty.
Bhushan quotes the pamphlet as alleging that the judge's brother has taken over land belonging to the Dalit community and barred the entrance to the land with a big iron gate so the real owners of the land do not have access to it.

Comments

The golden crop: How turmeric is transforming women's lives in tribal India

By Vikas Meshram* When the lush green fields of turmeric sway in the tribal belt of southern Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat, it is not merely a spice crop — it is the golden glow of self-reliance. In villages where even basic spices once had to be bought from the market, the very soil today is yielding a prosperity that has transformed the lives of thousands of families. At the heart of this transformation is the initiative of Vaagdhara, which has linked turmeric with livelihoods, nutrition, and village self-governance — gram swaraj.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

By Ram Puniyani The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue.

False claim? What Venezuela is witnessing is not surrender but a tactical retreat

By Manolo De Los Santos The early morning hours of January 3, 2026, marked an inflection point in Venezuela and Latin America’s centuries-long struggle for self-determination and independence. Operation Absolute Resolve, ordered by the Trump administration, constituted the most brutal and direct military assault on a sovereign state in the region in recent memory. In a shocking operation that left hundreds dead, President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were illegally kidnapped from Venezuelan soil and transported to the United States, where they now face fabricated charges in a New York federal detention facility. In the two months since this act of war, a torrent of speculation has emerged from so-called experts and pundits across the political spectrum. This has followed three main lines: One . The operation’s success indicated treason at the highest levels of the Bolivarian Revolution. Two . Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the remaining leadership have abandone...

The selective memory of a violent city: Uttam Nagar and the invisible victims of Delhi

By Sunil Kumar* Hundreds of murders take place in Delhi every year, yet only a few incidents become topics of nationwide discussion. The question is: why does this happen? Today, the incident in Uttam Nagar has become the centre of national debate. A 26-year-old man, Tarun Kumar, was killed following a dispute that reportedly began after a balloon hit a small child. In several colonies of Delhi, slogans such as “Jai Shri Ram” and “Vande Mataram” are being raised while demanding the death penalty for Tarun’s killers. As a result, nearly 50,000 residents of Hastsal JJ Colony are now living in what resembles a state of confinement.

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Search This Blog