Litigant tries to make judge recuse himself

NEW DELHI: In a rare occurrence, a litigant approached a judge of the Supreme Court for a favourable order, making the court express annoyance and its intention to post the case before another bench. Justices B R Gavai and CT Ravikumar informed senior advocates Dushyant Dave and Atmaram S Nadkarni, appearing for parties in the case — Bishamber Prasad vs Arafat Petrochemicals Ltd — that one of them has been approached by a party and that they intended to post it before another bench.
Both Dave and Nadkarni strongly opined against recusal of judges because of themisdemeanour of a litigant. “This is a cheap tactic to make a judge recuse from a case. We must protect judges and the institution from such attempts,” Dave said while deprecating the conduct of the litigant. The bench said, “This is the only institution where people by and large repose faith. Such attempts should be dealt with an iron hand. ” In its order, the bench said, “Dave for the appellant and Nadkarni for the respondent requested the bench to continue hearing the matter. ” “We accede to the request of the parties and post the matter for further hearing on September 21,” the bench said.