HC: Plea against judge frivolous & vexatious

Prayagraj: The Allahabad high court has rejected a plea seeking criminal contempt proceedings against Justice Sunita Agarwal, who is currently the Chief Justice of Gujarat high court.
The plea was made by advocate Arun Mishra alleging that while working as judge of Allahabad HC, Justice Sunita Agrawal had purposely passed some orders in his cases in a biased manner with oblique motive just to harass and damage him.Rejecting the contempt application (criminal), a division bench, comprising Justice Rajiv Gupta and Justice Surendra Singh-I, said that the plea of the petitioner was entirely misconceived, frivolous, irresponsible, without merit and therefore liable to be rejected outright
"We have no hesitation to hold that the present criminal contempt application is not only frivolous but is also vexatious. In the interest of proper functioning of this Institution, such applications should be discouraged by all means. More so, when the litigant happens to be an advocate from whom the court is entitled to expect a certain degree of responsibility and restraint as an officer of the court," the court observed.
Mishra alleged that a writ petition in which he was a lawyer was dismissed in December 2020 by a division bench headed by Justice Sunita Agarwal without allowing him the opportunity to present his arguments. A cost of Rs 15,000 was also imposed in that case. Mishra was also aggrieved by another order passed by a division bench led by Justice Agarwal on February 23, 2021, where a case in which he was representing the petitioner was "dismissed for want of prosecution".
Dealing with Mishra's arguments, the court at the outset observed that the orders referred to by him were issued by the division bench, presided over by Justice Agrawal in the exercise of judicial discretion and based on the facts and circumstances of each case. The same does not in any way amount to contempt of her own court as claimed by the applicant, who seeks criminal contempt proceedings solely against Justice Agarwal, it added.
The court also noted that in Mishra's case, the advocate general had denied the consent for initiating the contempt proceedings.
The court in its judgment dated September 21 concluded that Justice Agarwal's act and conduct by no stretch of imagination falls within the definition of criminal contempt and dismissed the plea.