Yogesh Kumar Sabharwal

Yogesh Kumar Sabharwal (14 January 1942 – 3 July 2015) was the 36th Chief Justice of India.

Sabharwal worked as an advocate for Indian Railways from 1969 to 1981, as an advocate for Delhi administration from 1973 to 1976–1977, later as Additional Standing Counsel and then as Standing Counsel.

He represented Delhi in the Bar Council of India from 1969 to 1973.

He also served as counsel to the Central Government from 1980 to 1986.

He became an Additional Judge in the Delhi High Court on 17 November 1986 and a judge soon after.

On 3 February 1999, he was appointed Chief Justice of Bombay High Court.

In less than a year, he was appointed a judge, Supreme Court of India.

More damaging is the fact that Pawan Impex, which had remained with a capitalization of 0.1 million Rs. since its founding in 2002, suddenly attracted the interest of Kabul and Anjali Chawla, owners of the large and rapidly growing real estate firm Business Park Town Planners (BPTP) which had promoted large malls like Park Centra (Gurgaon), Next Door (Faridabad), and the Parklands Shop-In Park (North Delhi).

Being the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court of India at the time, Sabharwal was appointed the Chief Justice of India to succeed Mr. R.C. Lahoti who was retiring on 31 October 2005.

He was sworn in as the Chief Justice by the President of India, A P J Abdul Kalam on 1 November 2005 for a period of about 14 months as he would turn 65, the retirement age for Chief Justices, on 14 January 2007.

As a judge of the Supreme Court, he delivered several important judgements dealing with constitutional matters.

In October 2005, the promoters of Filatex India, a polyester yarn firm with a turnover of Rs.

The business of Chetan and Nitin expanded dramatically after 2005.

Besides setting up several garment manufacturing factories, they have embarked on a massive real estate programme in NOIDA.

Possibly the largest project for Pawan Impex is the Rs.

560 million IT Mall being constructed in Noida.

In the application to construct this mall, they had given the turnover and business of their company as "Nil".

Their application for constructing this mall was approved rather mysteriously, given that in the application they had declared their company to be "Nil turnover" and "Nil business".

An earlier applicant, Softedge Solutions, had been rejected on the grounds that they could not satisfactorily answer questions about their previous experience in IT and their technical tie up.

During the 2006 Delhi sealing drive, the Supreme Court under Sabharwal demonstrated extraordinary zeal in demolishing a large number of commercial properties which were illegally running in residential areas.

There were very extensive protests every day, and considerable political pressure, due to which demolitions would often be hindered.

The court monitored events and regularly reprimanded the Municipal Corporation of Delhi for its tardy progress.

As a consequence of the extensive bulldozing of buildings, legal commercial properties, as in the new shopping malls, rose dramatically in price.

Particularly, luxury store owners and other upscale businesses were very keen to get into the limited mall floor space.

In June 2006, at the peak of the Supreme Court interest in the 2006 Delhi sealing drive, the Chawlas invested in Park Impex, raising the Share Capital 300 fold to Rs.

30 million, with equal shares between the original promoters and the Chawlas.

Two months later, in August, the company obtained a loan of Rs.

280 million by a bank which happens to be a tenant of a BPTP property.

These allegations appear to be well documented in a set of papers released by the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and were not addressed in Justice Sabharwal's public response, though he did mention that his sons were creating an IT Mall.

In May 2007, five months after Sabharwal retired from the bench, the afternoon newspaper Mid-Day brought out a series of articles that presented documents showing that YK Sabharwal's sons, Chetan and Nitin Sabharwal, owned at least four small ventures, most of them oriented towards garment exports, but one in the construction arena.

During Sabharwal's tenure as Chief justice, two of these firms suddenly attracted the interest of the very largest players in the shopping mall industry.

The first firm, Pawan Impex, Pvt Ltd, was registered for some time at Justice Sabharwal's official bungalow in the heart of Delhi, and later at his private house.

Having the firm registered at his government-furnished house may have been illegal.

In a newspaper editorial on Sept 2, 2007, Justice Sabharwal has said that he asked his sons to shift the registered address as soon as he found out about it, but in an interview recorded by Mid-Day in April 2007, after the shift, he claims complete ignorance about the matter.

After the partnership with BPTP in June 2007 Pawan Impex purchased 4 acre of land in NOIDA on which this IT Mall is being constructed; Mid-Day reports it to be a Rs.

560 million project with 300000 sqft saleable floor area.

A second firm, Harpawan Constructors, equally unknown, had also been promoted by the brothers.

3 billion in FY 2007, Purshottam and Madhu Sudan Bhageria, also the owners of real estate firm Fargo Estates, invested in Harpawan.

Subsequently, the Bhagerias announced plans for developing the Square One, a mall devoted to luxury brands in Delhi.

Justice Sabharwal has said that Purshottam Bhageria was his son's childhood friend, and that Harparwan Construction, despite its name, has not made any real estate or other investments.