The matter may be politicized, but, the lawyers should stand by the hon'ble judge.

Even as the opposition is mounting pressure on the government to name the minister who allegedly called and tried to influence Justice R Regupathi of the Madras High Court, former Attorney General Soli J Sorabjee has demanded that the judge himself name the caller.

"The HC judge should name the minister. His silence is fuelling politicisation of the issue and giving an impression that people could call up judges and get away with it. Naming the minister would help send a strong signal that no one can mess around with judiciary," Sorabjee told TOI.

A day after the controversy broke, Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan had taken strong exception to a minister calling up a judge and seeking favour in a pending case. He said the minister had committed gross impropriety, which amounted to interference in the administration of justice.

Even though Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley demanded the name saying "a minister is not a `raja' who is not accountable", the HC judge would not be game in revealing the identity of the caller, for even the Supreme Court judges have in the past shied away from naming persons in identical situations.

Take for example of the infamous Hawala scam case, which in 1997 was monitored by a three-judge Bench comprising then Chief Justice J S Verma and Justices S P Bharucha and S C Sen. During one of the hearings, the then CJI sparked high drama by blurting out that "we must tell of outside pressure on us for quite sometime now to see that we recuse ourselves from the case... People are trying to reach us. First a person tried to reach me. The same person approached brother Sen... Today they have contacted brother Bharucha."

None of them recused. But none of the judges, despite being contacted by "the same person" revealed the identity of the person, who clearly made an attempt to interfere with the course of administration of justice.

That was not the only incident. In 2005, Justice S N Variava heading a three-judge Bench whipped up a similar controversy during the hearing of a PIL filed by then MP and BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi and JD(U) leader Rajiv Ranjan Singh `Lallan' seeking cancellation of the bail of Lalu Prasad in a DA case.

Stunning everyone in the court, Justice Variava had revealed that "someone" from the Patna High Court had called him to know whether the trial court judge in the fodder scam case could be replaced. But, the judge never named him.

Two days later on March 17, 2005, Justice Variava suo motu clarified: "The person concerned has since clarified to me that the inquiry was just an academic query. I am satisfied that the explanation is correct and my original inference that there was an attempt to influence me was wrong."

Three months later, Prasad's lawyer B B Singh in open court dared the judge to name the person who made that innocuous query. When Justice Variava asked as to which person the lawyer was referring to, Singh had said: "This person is close to your Lordship and is from a particular caste."

But, Justice Variava refused to name the person saying: "As far as I am concerned, the matter is closed. It was a social encounter and had no concern with the matter. There is no reason why the name should be disclosed."