Vijayawada: Srilakshmi draws court flak for 'recusal' plea

Vijayawada: The Chief Justice-led Bench of the AP High Court consisting of the Chief Justice, Prashant Kumar Mishra and Judges, M Satyanarayana Murthy and D V S S Somayajulu on Thursday put a petitioner, a senior most IAS officer, in her place for asking two judges of the High Court to recuse themselves from hearing the Amaravati capital case as they have bought a piece of land offered to them at the prevailing market prices during the previous government.

The special chief secretary, Y Srilakshmi, filed a petition in the High Court 'requesting' the two judges of the Bench hearing the batch of petitions on Amaravati to withdraw on this ground.

While disposing of the petitions in the Amaravati issue, the Bench had to deal with this petition too.

In its oral order, the Bench said, 'a sincere' senior most IAS officer, who is working as special chief secretary to the government, Y Srilakshmi, who is familiar to the public of both states i.e. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for her honesty while discharging her duties, filed this petition with a request to two judges out of three judges viz. Justice M Satyanarayana Murthy and Justice D V S S Somayajulu to recuse/withdraw from hearing the writ petitions and to prove their qualification to hear the lis pendens (a pending legal action) before this court.

"It was 'on the ground that two judges... were allotted house plot of an extent of 600 sq yards each by the government in Nelapadu, which is within the limits of Capital Region Development Authority, now Amaravati Metropolitan Region Development Authority and thereby have financial interest in the subject matter.

The major ground urged before this court was that two judges i.e. Justice Satyanarayana Murthy and Justice Somayajulu had a 'pecuniary interest' in the litigation.

The order observed that, "the land was not allotted by the state on a concessional price to these two judges alone, but is based on the market value and is the result of an allotment to 14 judges in all. The state executed a sale deed in favour of two judges as alleged in the petition along with sale deeds in favour of other 12 judges as a policy decision. Would it create any pecuniary interest in the litigation to be examined by this court in view of the serious allegations made against the twojudges?"

Quoting a judgment of a five-member Constitution Bench, the HC observed, "The plea cannot be termed anything other than Bench hunting, if it is said that until and unless the one which suits a litigant is found the matters are not to be argued".

In this regard, the two judges said, it is relevant to extract the observation of the apex court that:

"We are constrained to pass here for a moment and to express grave concern over the fact that lately such tendencies and practices are on the increase. We have come across instances where one could simply throw a stone on a Judge (who is quite defenceless in such matters!) and later on cite the gratuitous attack as the ground to ask to recuse himself from hearing a case in which he would be appearing.

Such conduct is bound to cause deep hurt to the Judge concerned, but what is of far greater importance is that it defies the very fundamentals of administration of justice. A motivated application for recusal therefore needs to be dealt with sternly and should be viewed ordinarily as interference in the due course of justice leading to penal consequences".

The bench dismissed the petition as it did not have any merits.