Justice Manoj Tiwari has decided not to hear the case of IFS officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi, making him the ninth judge to step back from Chaturvedi’s cases. The case revolves around the deputation of an officer, with the Central Government requesting a transfer of the hearing from Nainital to the Delhi Bench of CAT.
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Justice Manoj Tiwari, a distinguished Judge of the Uttarakhand High Court, has opted to recuse himself from presiding over the case involving Sanjiv Chaturvedi, an Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer from the Uttarakhand cadre.
This decision was articulated through an order issued on February 15 by a bench comprising Justice Manoj Tiwari and Justice Pankaj Purohit. The order explicitly directed the Registry
“not to list the cases of Sanjiv Chaturvedi (Petitioner) before one of us, i.e., Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari,”
– although the rationale behind this recusal remains undisclosed.
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This marks the ninth instance where a Judge, including two Supreme Court judges, has recused themselves from adjudicating cases involving Sanjiv Chaturvedi, adding a layer of complexity to the officer’s legal battles. The case being considered by the bench pertains to the deputation of an officer and was originally filed by Chaturvedi before the Circuit Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) located in Nainital.
The Central Government subsequently filed a transfer petition, seeking to move the hearing of this case from Nainital to the Delhi Bench of CAT. Chaturvedi, in response, had sought directions from the Uttarakhand High Court for the expeditious disposal of his case, insisting that it be heard exclusively at the Nainital Bench.
This incident resembles a prior event in 2018 when the Uttarakhand High Court, dealing with a comparable issue, ordered that service matters concerning officers should be exclusively addressed at the Nainital Circuit Bench.
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The court also imposed a Rs 25,000 cost on the Central Government, a ruling later affirmed by the Supreme Court. In 2021, the Uttarakhand High Court reaffirmed this position, triggering another legal dispute from the Central Government. The matter was subsequently referred to a larger bench by the Supreme Court in March of the same year.
The protracted legal battles involving Chaturvedi date back to November 2013 when then Supreme Court Justice Ranjan Gogoi recused himself from hearing a case filed by Chaturvedi regarding a CBI investigation into the role of the then Chief Minister of Haryana, Bhupender Singh Hooda, and other senior politicians and bureaucrats in various corruption cases exposed by the officer, as well as his alleged harassment.
This trend continued in August 2016 when Supreme Court Judge UU Lalit also recused himself from the same case. Subsequent recusals occurred in April 2018 when a Shimla court judge stepped back from hearing a defamation case filed against Chaturvedi, and in March 2019, when the then Chairman of the Central Administrative Tribunal Delhi, Justice L Narasimhan Reddy, recused himself citing ‘unfortunate developments.’
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The year 2021 witnessed another recusal, as Justice RN Singh of CAT Delhi opted out of hearing a service matter case involving Chaturvedi. In May of the same year, Justice Rakesh Thapliyal of the Uttarakhand High Court recused himself from hearing cases related to Chaturvedi, without providing any explicit reason.
More recently, in November of the preceding year, a Bench of CAT, comprising Manish Garg and Chchabilendra Roul, also recused themselves from presiding over cases involving Sanjiv Chaturvedi.
