Prepared to bear consequences: Arvind Kejriwal to boycott Excise policy case proceedings before Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma

In a rare move, former Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal has decided that he and his lawyers will not participate or argue further in the excise policy case proceedings before Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma..Justice Sharma is seized of an appeal filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the discharge of Kejriwal and all other accused in the corruption case. In a letter written to Justice Sharma, Kejriwal said that he has lost confidence in her ability to ensure impartial adjudication and was hence, withdrawing himself from the proceedings before her.Kejriwal's letter comes just days after Justice Sharma rejected Kejriwal's application for her recusal in the case. The judge had said that a politician cannot be allowed to sow seeds of mistrust and that Kejriwal's application seeking her recusal amounted to putting the judiciary on trial. .In his letter to Justice Sharma, Kejriwal has now drawn on Mahatma Gandhi's concept of Satyagraha and stated that his present inability is limited to this matter and that he is fully conscious that he may prejudice his own legal interests by doing so."I am prepared to bear those consequences. That is the burden which every conscientious act of Gandhian satyagraha must bear, and my conscience leaves me no other dignified course. I cannot make peace with my soul by participating in proceedings marked, in my respectful view, by so grave an appearance of conflict, as though all were well. To do so would be a betrayal of my conscience, a disservice to the dignity of the judiciary, and an injustice to the people of India who still believe that courts are the last refuge against the overreach of power," he states. .Kejriwal also cited several instances from the past when judges have recused from cases whenever the need arose, including when their children were on a government panel or practising before the same court.In this regard, he cited the instances of sitting High Court Justices Sujoy Paul and Atul Sreedharan. "For instance, Justice Sujoy Paul sought transfer from the Madhya Pradesh High Court in 2024 because his son was practising in the same High Court. Similarly, Justice Atul Sreedharan from the same High Court sought transfer in 2023 because his elder daughter was to begin practice before courts within the same State and the Indore Bench of that High Court," he states," Kejriwal says in his letter. The letter also referred to retired Justice CV Sivaraman Nair."A look back at history and one would find the case of Justice V. Sivaraman Nair of the Kerala High Court who had worked as a junior of the legendary Supreme Court judge, Justice Krishna Iyer. It is said that as soon as Justice Nair’s daughter and daughter-in-law started practising in the Kerala High Court, he requested he be transferred to another State.".Further, he added that Justice Sharma's judgment rejecting his recusal application has become an additional and independent reason for his loss of confidence in the fairness of proceedings before her. "A litigant can perhaps live with an adverse order. What is far more difficult to accept is a judgment whose language conveys that the litigant’s plea has been seen as a challenge to the Judge’s dignity, oath, and institutional standing," the letter said.Kejriwal added that Justice Sharma's observations show that his plea of apprehension has been judicially understood as a personal and institutional affront. "And once that has happened, how do I expect that I would be heard on a wholly clean slate," he said.