This is the case where the documentary evidence was available to show that the judge has purchased the property worth crores in few lakhs in the name of his wife from well-known criminal who have illegally grabbed the land. There were inquiry reports of the Additional District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police which attested to these facts. However, despite this documentary evidence being brought to the notice of the then Chief Justice of India, he neither ordered an independent investigation nor did he allow the Committee on Judicial Accountability to get a regular FIR registered, so that a normal police investigation could have taken place. This was despite the fact that under the in-house procedure, supposedly adopted by the Supreme Court of India in 1999 for investigating charges against the judges, at least an in-house committee of judges could have formed to investigate the charges against Justice Bhalla. However instead of doing that, the then Chief Justice Y.K. Sabbarwal recommended Justice Bhalla to be the Chief Justice of Kerala High Court.