The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to inform Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Durgesh Pathak about the allotment of the agency’s appeal against their discharge by a lower court on February 27 in the tax policy case of Justice Manoj Jain.
This came after Justice Jain pointed out that neither Kejriwal, Sisodia nor Pathak appeared in the case assigned to him after it was transferred from Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma. Justice Jain said: “We understand that the case has been received on transfer… The matter is already in the news, however, if you wish, we will not be shy about sending them to send a fresh notice that the matter is before this court, and if they want to appear, they can one day here and there, we don’t know.” “The ideal scenario is just when everyone is here, and everyone is heard.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the Supreme Court issued notices to Kejriwal, Sisodia and AAP leaders Sanjay Singh, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Vinay Mishra in the criminal contempt case filed by Justice Sharma against them for alleged defamatory social media posts targeting her.
A bench of Justices Naveen Chawla and Ravinder Dodija directed them to file their replies within four weeks and fixed August 4 as the next hearing date. She said she would appoint an amicus curiae in the matter and directed the registry to retain copies of the social media posts and other relevant records and place them before the court. “The single judge in his judgment relied on social media posts and other electronic and publication records and directed the Registry to preserve copies of the same and produce them before this court.”
An unprecedented standoff between Justice Sharma and Kejriwal began after the lower court dismissed him and other AAP leaders in a tax policy case, prompting the CBI to approach the Supreme Court.
On March 9, Justice Sharma stayed the trial court’s directions for administrative action against a CBI officer and deferred Enforcement Directorate action. Kejriwal sought to move the matter from her seat. Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya rejected this on March 13.
On April 5, Kejriwal, Sisodia and others requested Justice Sharma’s recusal, which she rejected on April 20. On April 27, Kejriwal informed Justice Sharma that he would boycott the proceedings. Sisodia and Pathak followed suit.
On May 5, the court appointed senior lawyers amicus curiae to represent the three leaders, but the matter was postponed three times. Justice Sharma, on April 14, initiated contempt proceedings and withdrew, saying that the law does not allow a judge who has initiated contempt proceedings in relation to a matter to continue hearing it.
Justice Sharma said that after she refused to step down, Kejriwal adopted the course of “defamation” and “intimidation”. It noted that instead of challenging the order in the Supreme Court, Kejriwal chose to issue a letter interrupting the proceedings and a video in which, according to the court, he made false allegations against her that were decided in the April 20 judgment.
She said Kejriwal hatched a smear campaign by circulating and criticizing the matter on social media to ridicule the court. She said that his actions aimed to sow distrust among the general public against it, attribute political influence and lack of judicial independence to the court, and undermine its authority.
