Kejriwal argued that Justice Sharma attended events organized by a body of lawyers affiliated with the RSS, the parent body of rival AAP and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre.
Arvind Kejriwal stood before the Delhi High Court on Monday and, in an unusual move, pleaded his case — not the issue of excise tax policy per se, but a petition for the disqualification of the judge hearing the case.
The judge is Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma.
Justice Sharma’s judicial career spans more than three decades. She was promoted to the position of permanent judge in Delhi High Court on March 28, 2022.
From DU to HC
According to her official file on the Delhi High Court website, she obtained a BA (Hons) degree in English Literature from Delhi University, where she was selected as the best student of the year by Daulat Ram College, the court says. Website.
She earned an LLB in 1991, an LLM in 2004, and a diploma in marketing, advertising and public relations management, the profile says. In 2025, after four years of intensive research, she was awarded a PhD for her doctoral thesis entitled “Realizing the Constitutional Vision of Justice through Judicial Education: A Comparative Study of Best Practices in the UK, USA, Singapore and Canada”.
She became a judge at the age of 24 and a sessions judge 11 years later. During her long tenure in Delhi District Courts, she has presided over a wide range of courts – Family Court, Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Mahila Court, Special Court for Sexual Offenses against Women and as a Special Judge.
Five books, including fiction
The profile states that Justice Sharma has authored five books.
The first, “Don’t Break Up After a Breakup,” offers guidance to women who have chosen to remain single or have gone through difficult breakups.
Her second film, “Beyond Baghban” — the title is a reference to the Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini film “Baghban” from 2003 — is about the challenges faced by older people.
The third, “Tumhari Sakhi” (Your Friend), focuses on women’s rights.
She also wrote a work of fiction.Love is full circle.
The fifth title, “Judicial Education: Realizing the Constitutional Vision of Justice,” draws directly from her doctoral research.
The controversy is over the issue of Kejriwal’s liquor policy
Justice Sharma has recently received broader public attention on issues related to the case Question of tax policy in Delhi. The bail applications of several prominent politicians, including Kejriwal, AAP’s Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, and Telangana’s K Kavitha, were rejected.
After the court released Kejriwal and 22 other accused on February 27, the CBI appealed the order. On March 9, in the first hearing of the CBI petition, Justice Sharma stayed the trial court’s directions on the department’s action against the CBI officer investigating, and made the observation that some of the trial court’s observations were “erroneous.”
This is something that Kejriwal, among others, cited on Monday as his motivation “Fear of bias.”
What Kejriwal said in court
Discussing the recusal application, the AAP chief told Justice Sharma that the HC had passed a “blanket order” on March 9 after hearing the CBI “for just five minutes”, without hearing his side.
He said: “The order that the court issued after a full day of hearing, and after reading 40,000 pages of documents, was declared wrong by this court after a hearing of only five minutes.”
He cited the case Ranjith Thakur v. Union of India to argue that a judge need not be actually biased in order to be forced to recuse himself. He added: “They clearly said that the judge does not have to determine whether they are actually biased; rather, if there is a fear of bias in the party’s mind, there is a case for recusal.”
Kejriwal further pointed out that Justice Sharma attended events organized by the Akhil Bharatiya Adivakta Parishad — a lawyers’ body affiliated with the RSS, the parent body of AAP’s rival and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party at the Center — on four occasions.
“The ideology they follow is something we vehemently oppose and oppose publicly. This case is political,” he told the court.
When Justice Sharma asked her if he thought she followed this ideology, Kejriwal asked her directly: “Do you follow it?”
He also claimed that in five previous cases before the bench, including the bail applications of Sanjay Singh, Kavitha and Aman Dhal, the court’s observations amounted to judgments. “Every assertion made by the CBI and ED has been upheld by the court,” he said.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the prosecution, opposed the plea, arguing that allowing it would set a “dangerous precedent” and pointing out that the Adhivakta Parishad is a bar association whose judges are routinely called upon to handle incidents.
It reserved its ruling on the recusal petitions filed by Kejriwal, Sisodia and four others.
Arish Chhabra is an associate editor on the Hindustan Times online team, where he writes news reports and explanatory features, as well as overseeing the site’s coverage. His career spans nearly two decades across India’s most respected newsrooms in print, digital and broadcast. He has reported, written, and edited across formats—from breaking news and live election coverage, to analytical long-reads and cultural commentary—building a body of work that reflects editorial rigor and a deep curiosity about the community for which he writes. Areesh studied English Literature, Sociology and History along with Journalism at Punjab University in Chandigarh, and began his career in that city, eventually moving to Delhi. He is also the author of Little Big City: What Life is Like from Chandigarh, a collection of critical essays originally published as a weekly column in the Hindustan Times, which examines the culture and politics of a city that is much more than just its famous architecture – and in doing so, holds up a mirror to modern India. During his stints at BBC, The Indian Express, NDTV and Jagran New Media, he has worked across formats and languages; Mainly English, as well as Hindi and Punjabi. He was part of the crack team for the BBC Explainer project which was replicated around the world by the broadcaster. At Jagran, he developed editorial guides and trained journalists on integrity and quality content. He has also worked at the intersection of journalism and education. At the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad, he developed a website to streamline academic research in management. At Bennett University’s Times School of Media in Noida, he taught students the craft of digital journalism: from newsgathering and writing to social media strategy and video storytelling. Having moved from small town to larger city to megalopolis for education and work, his intellectual passions lie at the intersection of society, politics, and popular culture—a perspective that guides his writing and worldview. When he’s not working, he’s constantly reading long-form journalism or watching cerebral content, sometimes both at the same time.Read more
