CBI PROBE TWIST TO ANAND AGE ROW 

New Delhi, Nov. 27 :    New Delhi, Nov. 27:  The Supreme Court today agreed to a CBI probe into the controversy over Chief Justice A.S. Anand's age, but only to find out 'how documents from London showing the year of birth of the CJI as 1934 and not 1936 reached person or persons in India'. This is the first time that a chief justice is being embroiled in a CBI inquiry. The controversy was sparked by former law minister Ram Jethmalani who produced a purported certificate from the London Bar Examination Records to contend that Anand was born in 1934 and not 1936. Jethmalani had demanded a CBI inquiry. The 'To Whom It May Concern' certificate signed by S. Behr of Allied Sanis House, 412, Greenford Road, Middlesex, said 'this is to certify that the above (Adarsh Sein Anand) was enrolled as a student member of Inner Temple on January 4, 1962 and at that time, gave his year of birth as 1934'. Following Jethmalani's claim, a Chennai lawyer, S.K. Sundaram, sent a telegram to Anand, asking him to step down. The division bench of Justice K.T. Thomas and Justice R.P. Sethi took up the telegram as a 'contempt of court' and began proceedings. The chief justice's office had earlier issued a press release annexing the certificate from the London Inner Temple's chief executive of the general council of the Bar, Niall Morison, which said: 'We now acknowledge that the certificate of September 4, which was produced by us was incorrect. Mr. Behr, at the time of writing it, had not seen the original records held by the Inner Temple, wherein Chief Justice Anand, at the time of seeking admission to the Inner Temple on 21 November 1961, had made a declaration of his date of birth being 1, November 1936, which we accept as being accurate.' But Jethmalani refuted this and produced another certificate from Jonathan Hirst, chairman of the general council of the Bar of England. Hirst had written to the chief justice in response to his letter. 'This letter contained the following statements: the general council of Bar of England had received records from information provided by the Inns of Court on forms completed by those applying for student membership of the Inns; these records had been scanned onto an electronic database at the general council; having examined the scan- ned image relating to the CJI's records closely, it appears that the year of birth was recorded as 1934.' Jethmalani has also annexed these documents in his book Small Men Big Egos, published after he was removed as law minister. Jethmalani had accused the chief justice and attorney-general Soli J. Sorabjee of 'plotting the conspiracy' to remove him as minister. The bench headed by Justice Thomas, which took up the Sundaram contempt case today, questioned the veracity of the documents procured by Jethmalani and ordered the CBI to probe how these papers were obtained by those who tried to show Anand's year of birth as 1934. 'We deem it necessary to have a full investigation by (the) CBI to conduct detailed investigation as to how that document (the ones by Behr and Hirst) given by the general council of Bar annexed in Ram Jethmalani's book came into existence, and find out the person or persons responsible for it,' the judges said. They added that the contempt case would be taken up tomorrow for further hearing. The judges observed that 'on perusal of the documents produced by solicitor-general Harish Salve, we feel, prima facie, that the document purported to have been sent by the general council of Bar, London, on September 4, 2000 is not a genuine document as it speaks only about the year of birth of CJI'. The bench also directed the Supreme Court registry to send a formal complaint to station house officer of Tilak Marg police station for lodging an FIR regarding the document's authenti- city. 'After the FIR is registered, the Tilak Marg police station SHO will forward it to the CBI for further investigation. On completion of the investigation, CBI shall submit the report to the appropriate court with a copy to this court,' the judges orde- red. The judges barred the CBI from probing the actual year of Anand's birth on grounds that the President had already rejected a petition and accepted the age declared by the chief justice. 'It is made clear that as (the) President of India is the sole authority to decide the age of a judge of a high court, the CBI is not to go into the question of age of CJI A.S. Anand,' the bench said.