Justice Tejas Karia recuses from hearing PIL seeking contempt of court action against Arvind Kejriwal

Justice Tejas Karia of Delhi High Court on Wednesday recused from hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) petition seeking contempt of court action against Arvind Kejriwal, several leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and journalist Ravish Kumar for publishing videos of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma's court proceedings in the excise policy case.

The matter came up before a Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia when the latter chose to recuse himself from the matter.

The case will now be heard on Thursday by a different bench.

The petition was filed by advocate Vaibhav Singh taking objection to the video recordings of court proceedings in which Kejriwal argued his plea seeking the recusal of Justice Sharma.

The videos were published on social media.

Apart from Kejriwal and Ravish Kumar, action has been sought against Congress leader Digvijay Singh, AAP's Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh as well as Sanjeev Jha, Purandeep Sawhney, Jarnail Singh, Mukesh Ahlawat and Vinay Mishra.

The plea has also sought directions to remove the videos from the social media platforms.

As reported by Bar & Bench earlier, the High Court administration had earlier written to the Delhi Police to take action against the unauthorised recording and publication of court proceedings on social media. This included the viral videos of Kejriwal arguing before Justice Sharma.

Notably, advocate Vaibhav Singh had earlier filed a complaint before the Registrar General of the High Court seeking action against Kejriwal and others.

In his present petition, Singh has said that Kejriwal made "various frivolous, scandalous and misleading submissions before the Hon'ble Court without any basis against this Temple of Justice and also against the Noble Court of Justice Ms Swarana Kanta Sharma".

As per the petition,

"That several leader of Aam Aadmi Party including members of various other opposition parties have intentionally and deliberately and with the wilful intention to malign the image of this Hon'ble Court and to manipulate/misguide and also to make negative image of this institutions nationally and globally and also in eyes of general public living in India and outside India the court proceedings had done the video and audio recording of the court proceedings and circulated on various social media platforms."

He added that the recordings were circulated on X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and various new channels.

"The circumstances in which the audio/video recording of the Court Proceedings was done and shared, retweeted and posted by various political leaders and the way it went viral smells deep conspiracy by Mr. Arvind Kejriwal and various leaders of Aam Admi Party to malign the image of this noble institution and also to mislead the common people of this nation and also to show the general public that the judiciary is working on the behest of some political parties and also under the pressure of the Central Government," he said.