New Delhi, Apr 13 (PTI) Solicitor General Tushar Mehta on Monday urged Delhi High Court judge Swarana Kanta Sharma to initiate contempt action against former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and others for seeking her recusal from hearing the liquor policy case and said their pleas should be dismissed with costs.
Terming concerns by Kejriwal and others as “apprehensions of an immature mind,” Mehta told the court it was a matter of “institutional respect” and Justice Sharma should not succumb to pressure as her recusal on “unfounded allegations” would set a bad precedent.
Kejriwal and other discharged accused have requested Justice Sharma to withdraw herself from hearing CBI’s petition challenging the trial court’s order on their discharge in the liquor policy case. The AAP chief appeared before the judge on Monday and submitted his arguments.
“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?” the senior law officer argued during the hearing.
“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,” it further said.
Justice Sharma reserved the verdict on the issue of her recusal after hearing the AAP chief, the counsel for other discharged accused as well as Mehta till late evening.
Mehta said that the threshold for recusal was the “highest” and it was a “rare” remedy.
He said all earlier decisions by Justice Sharma in the liquor policy matter were passed as per the requirements of the law, and even other judges have passed adverse observations in the liquor policy cases.
He added that observations by Justice Sharma in her earlier orders were only “tentative” in nature, made in the circumstances as they were existing at that time, and therefore no bias could be attributed to her.
Mehta also defended the court’s March 9 order on deferring the proceedings in the related money laundering case, saying there was no stay but only a direction to adjourn the proceedings and no prejudice was caused to the discharged accused.
On Kejriwal’s objection to Justice Sharma attending events organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad, he said many Supreme Court and high court judges have attended these events which were purely legal.
The Parishad, he said, was not a political wing of any political party but only a “bar association”.
Mehta also said that short dates were given in the matter as it was the Supreme Court’s mandate to deal with cases of MPs and MLAs expeditiously.
Kejriwal claimed that except for the CBI’s petition and one other case involving a political opponent of the BJP, no other case before Justice Sharma was being heard at the same “speed” and there was a “trend” of the court “endorsing” the investigating agencies’ arguments.
He has sought the recusal of Justice Sharma, claiming there was a grave, bona fide, and reasonable apprehension that the hearing in the matter before her would not be impartial and neutral.
Besides Kejriwal, the applications for recusal of the judge have also been filed by AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Durgesh Pathak. Other respondents, including Vijay Nair and Arun Ramchandra Pillai, have also filed similar applications seeking recusal.
On February 27, the trial court discharged Kejriwal, Sisodia and 21 others and pulled up the CBI, saying its case was wholly unable to survive judicial scrutiny and stood discredited in its entirety.
On March 9, Justice Sharma issued notice to all 23 accused on CBI’s plea against their discharge, saying certain observations and findings of the trial court at the stage of framing of charges prima facie appeared erroneous and needed consideration.
She also stayed the trial court’s recommendation on the initiation of departmental action against the CBI’s investigating officer in the liquor policy case.
Later, Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, D K Upadhyaya, declined Kejriwal’s request to transfer the CBI’s plea from Justice Sharma to another judge and said that a call for recusal has to be taken by the judge concerned. PTI ADS RT RT
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