Supreme Court slams trend of litigants making allegations against judges who don't pass favourable orders

The Supreme Court on Monday expressed strong objection to a growing trend of litigants making scandalous and scurrilous allegations against judges who do not rule in their favour [In Re N Peddi Raju and ors].

A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai and Justice Vinod Chandran made the observation while dropping a criminal contempt of court case initiated against one N Peddi Raju and two lawyers, advocates Ritesh Patil and Nitin Meshram.

The contempt case was initiated after the top court found that they had made scurrilous allegations against Telangana High Court judge, Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya while seeking the transfer of a case to another High Court.

Commenting on such tendencies, the top court today remarked,

"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. Such a practice needs to be strongly deprecated."

It reiterated that lawyers, as officers of the court, owe a duty to it. However, the top court decided to drop the matter since Justice Bhattacharya had accepted the apologies tendered by the errant litigant and his two lawyers.

"The majesty of law does not lie in punishment but forgiving when apology is made. Since the learned Judge of the High Court against whom allegations were made has accepted the apology, we do not proceed further," it said.

The Court also warned lawyers to be careful to guard against any such scandalous comments that may creep into petitions in future.

"However, we add that lawyers, as officers of court, will be careful before signing pleadings which make allegations against judges of this court. With this apology is accepted and the contempt plea is closed," the Court said.

N Peddi Raju and advocates Ritesh Patil and Nitin Meshram had earlier alleged that there was a "likelihood of derailment of justice" in a case where Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy got relief from the High Court in connection with a Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act case.

Peddi Raju, through his lawyers, made the allegation in a petition before the Supreme Court to transfer the case to a court other than the Telangana High Court.

The transfer plea alleged that there were serious concerns about the impartiality of the Telangana High Court judge who had heard the case. It was further alleged that Raju's lawyer was only given five minutes to argue the case.

The Supreme Court condemned such accusations and issued notice for contempt of Court to Raju as well as two lawyers who represented him.

In an August 11 hearing of the matter, the top court told Raju and his lawyers to apologise before Justice Bhattacharya. The Supreme Court added that it would be up to Justice Bhattacharya to decide whether to accept the apology or not.

Justice Bhattacharya, on August 22, accepted their apologies, although she also made a note to rebut the allegations levelled by them in their transfer petition.

Today, the Supreme Court decided to close the contempt proceedings altogether, since Justice Bhattacharya had decided to accept the apologies tendered by Raju and his lawyers.

Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde appeared for Raju.

[Live Coverage]