Days after Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma initiated criminal contempt proceedings against former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders and withdrew from hearing related matters, two separate benches of the Delhi High Court are scheduled to hear these cases on Tuesday.
The Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) appeal against the February 27 court order acquitting Kejriwal and others in the Delhi tax policy case will be heard by a bench headed by Justice Manoj Jain, while the criminal contempt proceedings will be heard by a division bench comprising Justices Naveen Chawla and Ravinder Dodja.
The matter began on February 27 when the lower court discharged Kejriwal and others in the tax policy case. The CBI later appealed in the Delhi High Court.
On March 9, Justice Sharma stayed the trial court’s directions for administrative action against a CBI officer and adjourned the Enforcement Directorate (ED) proceedings. Kejriwal later sought transfer of the order, which was rejected by Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya on March 13.
On April 5, Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and others requested Justice Sharma’s recusal from the case, which was rejected on April 20. On April 27, Kejriwal informed the judge that he would boycott the proceedings. Sisodia and Durgesh Pathak also sent similar messages.
On May 5, the court decided to appoint senior lawyers as amicus curiae to represent the three leaders, but the matter was postponed three times.
On Thursday, the judge initiated contempt proceedings against Kejriwal, Sisodia, Pathak, Sanjay Singh and Saurabh Bhardwaj for defamatory and contemptuous content on social media against the judge.
She then withdrew from the case, saying that the judge who initiated the contempt proceedings could not continue hearing the same case. However, she clarified that the order she had issued earlier on April 20 refusing to withdraw from the tax policy case still stands.
Justice Sharma said that after rejecting the disqualification request, Kejriwal adopted the course of “defamation” and “intimidation”. The judge noted that instead of challenging the order in the Supreme Court, Kejriwal issued a letter boycotting the proceedings and released a video purportedly making false allegations against her.
She said that his actions aimed to sow distrust among the public against it, attribute political influence and lack of judicial independence to the court, and undermine its authority.
