Criminal contempt petition in Uttarakhand HC against sitting judge

A criminal contempt petition filed against Justice Lok Pal Singh of the Uttarakhand high court a month ago came up for hearing before a division bench of the court on Wednesday.

The bench comprising justices Rajiv Sharma and Sudhanshu Dhulia after hearing the matter for nearly half an hour, decided to take up the maintainability of the case on July 17, said advocate Chhitij Kishor Sharma, the petitioner.

Nainital-based Sharma on May 30 filed the contempt petition in the high court against the Justice under Section 15 read with Section 16 of the Contempt of the Courts Act for allegedly using inappropriate language against lawyers including a former judge and a woman lawyer. The HT has a copy of the petition.

The petitioner wanted the court to take suo moto cognizance in the matter.

The petitioner alleged that the judge had “transgressed all bearable boundaries in his utterances during the court proceedings against the applicant/petitioner, colleague of the applicant/petitioner Soniya Chawala, advocate general SN Babulkar, government advocate GS Sandhu, the chief standing counsel Paresh Tripathi and also against senior advocate and former Judge of Allahabad high court Pradeep Kant, who had appeared in 2 or 3 matters before his Lordship on being briefed by either the applicant/petitioner or by Soniya Chawla, besides some deputy advocate generals or assistant government advocate..”

The petition further alleged that the Judge not only “misbehaved with the counsels, the litigant present in person but has also used derogatory remarks against the lawyers.”

The petitioner had moved the application for approval to file criminal petition against the judge before the advocate general.

The advocate general in his reply stated: “I have gone through the contents of the contempt petition and the affidavit and I find that the incidence of the 11th May 2018 occurred with myself and subsequently the hon’ble Judge has passed an order against me and my Government Advocate hence although the facts as mentioned do make out a case of sanction yet in order to avoid any allegation of bias, I am not in a position to accord sanction.”

Sharma said the advocate general SN Babulkar was present during the hearing

He said as the advocate general had not given his approval for the criminal petition against the judge, it was decided that the case will be heard for maintainability on July 17.