Justice Adi was wrong: Soerjono

Justice Adi was wrong: Soerjono

JAKARTA (JP): A special team investigating allegations that
members of the Supreme Court accepted bribes to acquit the Gandhi
Memorial School principal found no evidence to support the claim,
Chief Justice Soerjono announced yesterday.

The team however found a "violation of procedure" in the way
that the Gandhi Seva Loka vs Ram Gulumal alias V. Ram case was
parceled out to the panel of justices in the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Soerjono announced the result of the
investigation after briefing President Soeharto at Merdeka Palace
yesterday. He was accompanied by Sarwata, the justice who headed
the team investigating the latest and most damaging allegation of
corruption against the country's court system.

The team was formed after the allegation of collusion was made
by deputy chief justice Adi Andojo Soetjipto in April. Its
finding, based on oral and written interviews with 34 people, was
presented in a 1,561-page report.

Justice Adi went public with the allegation after his request
in December that the Jakarta Prosecutor's Office look into the
matter was ignored. Since then, he has been rebuked by the chief
justice and ordered to keep silent pending the result of the
investigation. He also momentarily lost his power to parcel out
cases, a task that comes with his position in the Supreme Court.

The court case pitted defendant Ram, founder and principal of
the Gandhi Memorial School, and the Indian community in Jakarta
grouped in the Gandhi Seva Loka, previously the Bombay Merchant
Association.

Soerjono said the two parties were disputing over the
management of the school, which has become a big money spinner
with an annual turnover of billions of rupiah.

The Supreme Court in July last year acquitted Ram Gulumal of
all charges of embezzlement of the school's funds, reversing
verdicts of guilty by the Central Jakarta District Court and the
Jakarta High Court. The district court handed Ram a one-year jail
term, while the high court cut the sentence to eight months.

Not happy with the ruling, members of the Gandhi Seva Loka
turned to Justice Adi in July asking him to look into what they
believed to be collusion between the defendant and the panel of
judges who heard the case.

The allegation of collusion centered on the Court's Director
of Criminal Affairs Sujatmi Sudarmoko, and Justice Samsoedin
Aboebakar. It was Sujatmi who directed that the case be heard by
Justice Samsoedin.

Although the final decision in parceling out the case was made
by Justice Adi as deputy chief for criminal affairs, he said it
was much later that he suspected that the Gandhi Memorial School
case should not have been heard by Samsoedin's panel.

In his letter to the Prosecutor's Office in December, Adi said
Rp 1.4 billion (US$600,000) may have changed hands in the process
that led to the Court's ruling to acquit Ram of all charges.

That allegation was based on a letter which Adi received at
his home, Soerjono said yesterday, citing the report of the
investigating team. "But without attempting to check the accuracy
of this information, he (Adi) treated it as fact," he said.

The letter, according to the team's report, suggested that Ram
was "offering Rp 1.4 billion to settle the case at the Supreme
Court".

The report said none of the people it asked, including Adi
Andojo, knew if any money actually changed hands. Some people
said they only heard about money being mentioned, it said.

Ram also denied ever offering or giving money to anyone in
connection with the case, whether in the district court, the high
court or the Supreme Court, the report said.

"The question of money in relation to the collusion issue is
not clear. And there were conflicting reports about the exact sum
involved, who it came from, and who it was given to," it said.

The report said there was a "violation of procedure" in the
way the panel of justices led by Samsoedin was appointed to hear
the case but this "did not amount to collusion".

The report refrained from looking into the specifics of the
court case, which it pointed out has already been settled with
the acquittal of the defendant.

Chief Justice Soerjono declined to comment on what further
action he would take and whether or not Justice Adi had been
wrong in making the issue public in the first place.

"We'll study first before we take any action we deem
necessary," he said. (emb)