Justice Hegde when contacted said that his decision is not final as yet. He is expected to take a final call on Saturday after a visit to New Delhi where he is expected to hold a meeting with the other members of the drafting panel.
"Yes, I am upset with the vilification campaign and I am sure that these are intentional in nature. On one hand Sonia Gandhi says that she is against such a campaign and on the other she refuses to pull up her colleagues who have been indulging in such smear campaigns," he said.
"It is with a great deal of difficulty that a process to draft the Lokpal Bill has started. I would not want to take any hasty decision without consultation and derail the process,"
he added.
Though he refused to comment on the controversy surrounding Shanti Bhushan, the other member of the panel representing the civil society, Hegde said, "All I want to ask is that a CD of 2006 makes a surprise entry in the year 2011. There is a procedure of law and let law take its own course. Let the correctness be verified. Moreover, these members have no role in decision-making and their job is just to give suggestions to the Bill. I do not find any harm in that being allowed to take place."
According to Hegde, this is not the first time he was a victim of such a campaign. "You may recall Law Minister Veerappa Moily had indulged in something similar. He was the same man who was involved in the tape cases and also the Jharkhand vote buying case. Today when I look at Digvijay's statements they appear to be similar to the one made by Moily," he said.
"A few days ago Digvijay had said that he had just heard of me and did not know much. He had also said that he had heard that I was good as the judge of the Supreme Court. Now suddenly he has different things to say and this sounds surprising to me," Hegde concluded.
© 2025