Merely Because Petition Involves Political Figure, It Can’t Be Ground To Transfer Proceedings: Supreme Court

The proceeding before the Apex Court originated from a Transfer Petition seeking transfer of a Criminal Petition from the Telangana High Court to the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court.

The 3-Judge Bench of Chief Justice Of India B.R. Gavai, Justice K. Vinod Chandran and Justice Atul S. Chandurkar stated, “We find that merely on the basis that a petition involves a political figure in a State cannot constitute a ground to transfer the proceedings from the High Court of that State to the High Court of another State.”

“A perusal of the affidavit of apology would reveal that the apology is tendered only to this Court. In our view, the scandalous allegations are made against the learned Judge of the High Court. Therefore, it would have been more appropriate for the alleged contemnors to tender an apology 11 to the learned Judge of the High Court”, it further added.

Advocate Varun Thakur represented the alleged contemnors while Advocate Vipin Nair represented the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA).

Factual Background

The grounds on which the Criminal Petition was sought to be transferred were that the conduct of the Single Judge of the Telangana High Court, who was hearing the matter, gave rise to serious apprehension of partiality and procedural discrimination, since the arguments of the counsel for the petitioner were summarily curtailed. The petitioner stated that he was given only five minutes to argue the matter. Further averments were made regarding the political status of the Respondent therein, and the fact that the executive control was now led by him. The alleged contemnor believed that there existed a likelihood of derailment of justice.

The Apex Court had earlier dismissed the transfer petition, taking into account the scandalous and scurrilous remarks made against the Judge of the High Court. Show cause notice was issued not only to the alleged contemnor but also to the Advocate-on-Record, who had filed the petition and the counsel, who had drawn the petition, as to why an action for committing contempt of the court should not be initiated against them.

Reasoning

The Bench referred to the judgment in M.Y. Shareef and Another v. Hon’ble Judges of the High Court of Nagpur and Others (1954), wherein it was held that the counsel who signs applications or pleadings containing matter scandalizing the Court without reasonably satisfying themselves about the prima facie existence of adequate grounds are themselves guilty of contempt of court. Referring to various other judgments, the Bench said, “It can thus be clearly seen that this Court, in unequivocal terms, has held that when a lawyer is faced with a conflict between his duty towards the Court and duty towards the client, he has to give preference to duty to the Court rather than duty to the client.”

The Bench also highlighted the trend among lawyers to criticize judges of the High Court or the Trial Court without reason. “It has also become a recurring trend that whenever the matter involves a political figure in a particular State, to allege that in that State a litigant may not get justice and therefore, transfer of the proceedings from that State to any other State is sought. Such practices cannot be countenanced”, it said while also adding, “The Judges of the High Court are also Constitutional functionaries, and they enjoy the same immunity as is enjoyed by a Judge of the Supreme Court. In our view, when scandalous allegations are made against the Judges of the High Court, it becomes the duty of this Court to protect the Judges of the High Court.”

The Bench thus held, “We find that merely on the basis that a petition involves a political figure in a State cannot constitute a ground to transfer the proceedings from the High Court of that State to the High Court of another State.”

As per the affidavit of apology, the apology was tendered only to the Apex Court. The Counsel appearing for the alleged contemnors sought liberty from the Court to approach the High Court to tender their unconditional apology. “We, therefore, permit the alleged contemnors to tender unconditional apology before the learned Judge of the High Court”, the Bench said.

Ordering the matter to be reopened and asking the respondents to tender their unconditional apology before the Judge of the High Court, within one week of reopening of the matter, the Bench held, “The learned Judge would decide the question of acceptance of the apology within a period of one week thereafter. We will consider the issue with regard to acceptance of apology tendered to this Court by the alleged contemnors, after the matter is disposed of by the learned Single Judge of the High Court.”

“We hasten to add that the Courts gain no pleasure in penalizing or sentencing the lawyers for acting in a manner which would amount to Contempt of this Court”, it concluded.

Cause Title: In Re: N. Peddi Raju and Others (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 989)

Appearance

Alleged Contemnors: Senior Advocates S. Nagamuthu, Sanjay R. Hegde, M. R. Shamshad, Advocates Varun Thakur, Shraddha Saran, Ramkaran, AOR M/s Varun Thakur & Associate, Advocates Ranbir Singh Yadav, Prateek Yadav, Puran Mal Saini, Anzu K. Varkey, Yogesh Yadav, AOR James P. Thomas, Advocates Ankit Tiwari, Tanay Hegde, Rahul Singh, Vishal Jogdand, Pratik Bombarde, Rishi Raj Singh, Saurabh Singh

SCAORA: Advocates Vipin Nair, Amit Sharma, Nikhil Jain, Kaustabh Shukla,

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