Justice Prashant Kumar row: Allahabad High Court judges urge CJ to defy Supreme Court order, seek full court meeting

At least 13 judges of the Allahabad High Court have written to the Chief Justice Arun Bhansali for convening a Full Court meeting against Supreme Court's recent order against Justice Prashant Kumar.

In a drastic direction issued on August 4, the Bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan urged the High Court Chief Justice to strip Justice Kumar of criminal roster till his retirement and make him sit in a Division Bench with a seasoned senior judge of the High Court.

The direction and scathing remarks against Justice Kumar were passed for his verdict that criminal prosecution could be used as an alternative means to recover money in civil disputes.

According to official sources, Justice Arindam Sinha today wrote a letter to the Chief Justice, expressing shock and pain over the apex court order.

"Subject order dated 4th August, 2025 was made without direction for issuance of notice and contains scathing findings against the learned Judge," Justice Sinha wrote in the letter.

The judge suggested that the Full Court resolve that the High Court will not comply with the order to remove Justice Kumar from criminal roster as the top court does not have administrative superintendence over High Courts. He has also said the Full Court should record its anguish in "respect of the tone and tenor of said order".

The letter has been signed by 12 other judges.

According to media reports, judges of the Supreme Court also have taken exception to the direction issued by the Bench led by Justice Pardiwala.

Interestingly, the Supreme Court has re-listed the case involving Justice Prashant Kumar for a hearing on Friday.

The Bench had made strong remarks about the High Court judge’s understanding of criminal law.

“We are shocked by the findings recorded in paragraph 12 of the impugned order. The judge has gone to the extent of stating that asking the complainant to pursue civil remedy would be very unreasonable as civil suits take a long time, and therefore the complainant may be permitted to institute criminal proceedings for recovery,” it had noted.

The Court had passed the order on a plea challenging the High Court’s order dismissing an application filed by one M/S Shikhar Chemicals (petitioner) seeking to quash criminal proceedings arising out of a commercial transaction.

The respondent in the case had supplied thread worth ₹52,34,385 to the petitioner-firm, of which ₹47,75,000 was allegedly paid. A complaint was filed before the magistrate claiming that the balance amount remained unpaid.

The petitioner moved the High Court to quash the proceedings, contending that the dispute was purely civil in nature and had been improperly given a criminal colour. However, the High Court dismissed the plea.

In his order dated May 5, Justice Kumar observed that requiring the complainant to pursue a civil suit would be “very unreasonable” as such suits take years to conclude and, therefore, criminal prosecution was justified.

On August 4, the Supreme Court described this reasoning as untenable. The order passed by the High Court was accordingly set aside, and the matter was remanded for fresh consideration by a different judge.

Pertinently, on August 4, the High Court also ordered a temporary change to the roster as per which Justice Kumar is now sitting with Justice MC Tripathi on August 7 and 8 to hear land acquisition, development authorities writs and environment matters.

Justice Dinesh Pathak is currently hearing the criminal matters earlier assigned to Justice Kumar.