CHENNAI: Ten days after a judge of the Madras high court recused from hearing a criminal case in view of allegations of bribery levelled by a lawyers’ union, All India Lawyers Association for Justice (AILAJ) on Monday informed the court that it was in no way connected with the issue and that the association’s name was misused.In a communication addressed to the registrar general of the HC, AILAJ said, “We are shocked to know that the name of our organisation has been misused in a fake letter sent to Justice M Nirmal Kumar about a senior counsel of the HC in connection with a criminal case. The association became aware of the issue through the order dated Feb 5 of Justice Nirmal Kumar and news articles published in news dailies dated Feb 15.”“We humbly submit that we never sent any such letter to Justice Nirmal Kumar or to any other authority from our organisation, and our organisation is in no way connected with the purported complaint.”“Please note that the address mentioned in that purported complaint is not our address, and no one from our organisation is functioning from that address. Moreover, AILAJ does not have a post of secretary as mentioned in the fake letter,” the communication said.The Tamil Nadu state chapter of AILAJ operates under state coordinators. It submitted that the misuse of its organisation’s name was a mala fide attempt to defame and malign the organisation and cause disrepute, it added.“Hence, we request you to take necessary action in regard to the purported complaint, which is a fake letter misusing our organisation’s name, and take necessary action against the person(s) behind the fake letter,” the letter signed by AILAJ’s state coordinator U Adhiyaman said.
