The bench directed the listing of the matter before another bench, subject to orders of the Chief Justice of the HC. (File Photo)A division bench of the Delhi High Court Thursday recused itself from hearing a contempt plea of former district and sessions judge Sujata Kohli against ex-president of the Delhi High Court Bar Association Rajiv Kholsa.
A bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Amit Sharma said, “At the request of Ms Kohli who appears in person, in order to obviate any possibility of alleged bias, we consider it appropriate to recuse from hearing the proceedings.” The bench directed the listing of the matter before another bench, subject to orders of the Chief Justice of the HC.
Kohli has accused Khosla for allegedly obstructing proceedings after being convicted by a trial court for assaulting her when she was a practising lawyer 27 years ago.
In 1994, Khosla, along with other lawyers, allegedly surrounded Kohli and then pulled her hair, dragged her, twisted her arms, hurled abuses and also threatened her. The incident took place on August 5, 1994, but the case came up before the court on July 7, 1995. Kohli, a lawyer since 1987, was practicing from her seat near the bar association library at Tis Hazari Lawyer’s Complex.
Khosla was convicted in October 2021. The lower court, in the judgment, observed that more often, police are “very slow” in taking action when it comes to lawyers and held Khosla guilty for offences punishable under IPC Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506(i) (criminal intimidation).
After he was found guilty in the case, Kohli, in a petition before the High Court, claimed that Khosla used contemptuous words against the chief metropolitan magistrate who convicted him and a mob of lawyers was present in the courtroom to obstruct proceedings when the sentence was to be passed. In March, the HC had considered it necessary to call for records of the trial court, including the video conferencing or hybrid proceedings of November 27 and 30, 2021, as well as CCTV footage of these dates in relation to courtroom 38 of Tis Hazari Court from both within and outside the courtroom.
“We also consider it appropriate to call for the report from the principal district judge headquarters concerned in relation to the above mentioned proceedings in view of the averments made in the present contempt petition. Let the copy of the present petition be transmitted to the principal district judge headquarters along with the copy of directions issued by this court today forthwith,” the court said.
Kohli, in her petition, also alleged that two other lower court judges had to remain present in the courtroom of the CMM when the sentence against Khosla was to be passed. “That is the most shocking part. They were there on the dais, one to the left and one to the right. They remained there for almost one hour and they addressed the convict as ‘Khosla sahab, we are family’. What about the victim in the system? Where will she go if you all are family,” she submitted during a previous hearing before the HC.