Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urged the Delhi High Court to initiate contempt action against Arvind Kejriwal over recusal pleas. He termed allegations unfounded, stressing institutional respect and warning that yielding would set a harmful precedent for judicial independence.
NEW DELHI: Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urged a Delhi High Court judge, Swarana Kanta Sharma, to initiate contempt proceedings against former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and others for seeking her recusal in the liquor policy case. He also said their applications should be rejected along with costs.
Calling their concerns “apprehensions of an immature mind,” Mehta told the court that the issue was one of “institutional respect” and that Justice Sharma should not yield to pressure. He argued that her recusal based on “unfounded allegations” would set an undesirable precedent.
Kejriwal and other discharged accused have asked Justice Sharma to withdraw from hearing the CBI’s petition challenging the trial court’s order that discharged them in the liquor policy matter. On Monday, Kejriwal appeared before the judge and presented arguments in support of his request.
The senior law officer argued during the hearing,
“It is a matter of institutional respect. There are several things going on in the country. It is a question of how the system is made to function with honesty. If this is the standard, would the court decide cases on the basis of what the public feels?”
It further said,
“Fear is what they are trying to instil. The recusal should be rejected with strictness. This needs to be dismissed with costs. I am urging that contempt action be initiated,”
Justice Sharma reserved her decision on the recusal issue after hearing Kejriwal, counsel for other discharged accused, and Mehta till late evening.
Mehta submitted that the standard for recusal is the “highest” and that it is a “rare” remedy. He maintained that Justice Sharma’s earlier rulings in the liquor policy case complied with legal requirements and that other judges have also made adverse observations in related liquor policy matters.
He further argued that Justice Sharma’s remarks in prior orders were only “tentative” and were made based on the circumstances existing at the time. Therefore, he said, no bias can be attributed to her.
Mehta also defended the court’s March 9 order for deferring proceedings in the related money laundering case, stating that there was no stay and only a direction to adjourn, and that no prejudice was caused to the discharged accused.
On Kejriwal’s objection to Justice Sharma attending events organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad, Mehta said that numerous Supreme Court and high court judges have attended similar events which were purely legal. He also said the Parishad was not a political wing of any party but only a “bar association”.
He added that short dates were given in the case because the Supreme Court required expeditious handling of matters involving MPs and MLAs.
Kejriwal, however, claimed that apart from the CBI’s petition and one other matter involving a political opponent of the BJP, no other case before Justice Sharma was being heard at the same pace. He alleged a “trend” of the court “endorsing” the investigating agencies’ arguments.
Besides Kejriwal, applications seeking Justice Sharma’s recusal have also been filed by AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Durgesh Pathak. Other respondents, including Vijay Nair and Arun Ramchandra Pillai, have filed similar applications.
On February 27, the trial court discharged Kejriwal, Sisodia and 21 others, while strongly criticising the CBI and stating its case was unable to withstand judicial scrutiny and was discredited in its entirety.
On March 9, Justice Sharma issued notice to all 23 accused on the CBI’s plea challenging their discharge, indicating that certain observations and findings made by the trial court at the charge-framing stage appeared prima facie erroneous and required reconsideration. She also stayed the trial court’s recommendation to initiate departmental action against the CBI investigating officer in the liquor policy case.
Subsequently, Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court D K Upadhyaya declined Kejriwal’s request to transfer the CBI’s petition to another judge, and said that the decision on recusal must be taken by the judge concerned.
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