The Supreme Court of India on Monday issued a strong warning against what it described as a “growing trend” of litigants and lawyers making “scurrilous and scandalous allegations” against judges following unfavorable court orders.
The observation came from a Bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai and Justice Vinod Chandran, as they closed a criminal contempt of court case against a litigant and two advocates. The court dropped the proceedings only after the High Court judge who was targeted accepted an apology from the individuals.
“In the recent past, we have noticed a growing trend of making scurrilous and scandalous allegations against a judge when they don’t pass favourable orders,” the Supreme Court remarked in its order. “Such a practice needs to be strongly deprecated.”
The contempt case involved litigant N Peddi Raju and his two lawyers, advocates Ritesh Patil and Nitin Meshram. The trio had made “scurrilous allegations” against Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya of the Telangana High Court while seeking to transfer a case to a different High Court.
The underlying case involved Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, who had received relief from the High Court in a matter related to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
In their transfer petition to the Supreme Court, Raju and his lawyers alleged there was a “likelihood of derailment of justice” and expressed “serious concerns” about the impartiality of Justice Bhattacharya. They also claimed their lawyer was only given five minutes to argue the case.
The Supreme Court, taking strong exception to these accusations, initiated the contempt proceedings.
During an August 11 hearing, the top court directed Raju and his lawyers to tender an apology directly to Justice Bhattacharya. On August 22, Justice Bhattacharya formally accepted their apologies, while also filing a note to rebut the allegations they had made.
Citing the High Court judge’s acceptance of the apology, the Supreme Court on Monday decided to close the matter, which was argued by Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde on behalf of Raju.
“The majesty of law does not lie in punishment but forgiving when apology is made,” the Bench stated. “Since the learned Judge of the High Court against whom allegations were made has accepted the apology, we do not proceed further.”
Despite this, the Court issued a final caution to the legal profession.
“However, we add that lawyers, as officers of court, will be careful before signing pleadings which make allegations against judges of this court,” the Supreme Court said, warning lawyers to guard against any such “scandalous comments” in future petitions.
