Justice Hari Shankar, however, agreed with the observation of the district judge that the petition had not been able to make out any convincing case of legitimate apprehension of bias against the ASCJ.
The Court said that a request for transfer of a case without justified reasons practically amounts to an abuse of process as it would tantamount to forum shopping and all the instances cited by the petitioner do not, by the farthest of imagination, make out any such case.
“The mere fact that the petitioner may be unhappy by the manner in which the case is progressing before the trial court, is no ground for the petitioner to uproot the matter from the court in which it is pending and plant it elsewhere. If such an attitude is to be countenanced, no judicial officer would be able to function dispassionately,” the Court said.
The High Court noted that the present case is an extreme example of abuse of process and seeks to interfere with pending proceedings and to throw a cloud on the integrity of a judicial officer without any material whatsoever.
Therefore, Justice Hari Shankar said that he is constrained to dismiss the petition costs.
“I am constrained, therefore, despite the fact that the petitioner appears in person, to dismiss this petition with costs of ₹ 25,000/ – to be deposited by the petitioner with the Registry of this Court by way of a crossed cheque favouring the Delhi High Court Legal Services Committee. Let the cheque be presented within a period of one week from the date of receipt, by the petitioner, of a certified copy of this order, failing which this Court would treat it as contempt,” the Court ordered.
Source: Barandbench
