Bombay High Court initiates contempt of court against 3 lawyers for submitting fabricated news report to compel judge to recuse

The Bombay High Court on January 29 initiated suo motu contempt proceedings against three lawyers including a junior lawyer for bringing to the court a false and fabricated report casting aspersions on a High Court judge to compel the judge to recuse from hearing a case. [Amar Mulchandani v. Enforcement Directorate and connected petitions].A division bench of Justices Anuja Prabhudessai and NR Borkar was informed by the lawyer that the newspaper clipping was brought to the Court’s attention at his client’s insistence. However, the bench was far from pleased with this explanation.“A lawyer is not a mouthpiece of his client. He cannot join hands with his client in his professional capacity to malign the Judge and bring disrepute to the institution. The fact that he is a young lawyer, does not give him a license to pollute the stream of justice. On the contrary, being an officer of the Court he is under an obligation to advise his client against making any baseless and unwarranted remarks,” the court said in its 25-page order..The controversy erupted after an application for urgent hearing was filed along with a news clipping by a junior lawyer, advocate Zoheb Merchant.The application was filed on behalf of Merchant's client, Bhisham Pahuja, an advocate by profession who intervened in a quashing petition filed by one Amar Mulchandani. Mulchandani, who was booked for laundering over ₹400 crores, had moved the High Court to quash the case against him. The news clipping filed through Merchant elaborated about a strong rumour that the High Court was likely to grant bail to Mulchandani who was stated to be friends with the High Court judge Justice Nitin Sambre. The news clipping also said a complaint has been lodged before the Chief Justice for directions to withdraw the matter from Justice Sambre-led bench and assign it to another bench..When such an application was brought to Justice Sambre’s attention on November 8, 2023, he called for an explanation affidavit from Merchant.Both Merchant and his senior, advocate Minal Chandnani, who was representing other intervenors, filed apology affidavits before the court highlighting their faith in the Court. However, the Court did not accept the apology and deferred hearing to test the bonafides of both lawyers..Simultaneously, directions were issued to the local police Commissioner to interrogate the publisher and editor of the newspaper, the clipping of which was attached to the application. The report that was filed by police revealed that the said newspaper had never carried such an article which was attached to the application..Pujani claimed to have apprised Merchant of the news clipping only to bring to the judge’s notice that his reputation was being maligned by some unscrupulous elements.The division bench, however, opined that bringing to the court’s attention a news clipping without verifying its authenticity or genuineness was sufficient to demonstrate the falsity of his bonafide intentions.“We are constrained to remind Respondent No.5 and alike that Judges are insusceptible to any kind of personal criticism and nothing said or written by the so-called unscrupulous elements impacts or influences the decision-making process or impairs the fearless discharge of duties,” the judge recorded in its order..The Court concluded that the three lawyers had indulged in making scandalous attack on the judge to browbeat him to recuse from the matter.“Such deliberate, motivated and contemptuous act, which impair the administration of justice or tend to bring the administration of justice into disrepute or lowers the dignity of the court fall within the definition of criminal contempt under Contempt of Courts Act,” the Court held and directed the registry to issue contempt notice to all lawyers..[Read Order]