SC terms comments made by U’khand HC judge against advocate as ‘unwarranted, unlawful’

Dehradun: The Supreme Court bench of Justices Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Sandeep Mehta censured Uttarakhand high court (HC) Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma for making disparaging remarks against an advocate, saying that the comments regarding the lawyer's conduct were "unwarranted and unlawful".
"We disapprove of the proclivity of the HC judge in making remarks against advocates for nothing so serious to take note of," the SC said and set aside the orders dated Dec 1, 2020 and Dec 7, 2021, which were issued by the HC in response to two appeals seeking the removal of the remarks.
The HC order noted that the advocate, who was representing a respondent in the matter, had left the courtroom "without expressing the courtesy of informing the court that he needed to attend proceedings in other courts".
The apex court determined on Sep 24 that the comments made by the HC judge expressing displeasure over this were "unjustified", emphasising that "the advocate's conduct and the circumstances did not warrant the recording of such remarks".
Referring to a previous case ‘Neeraj Garg vs Sarita Rani & others (2021)', the top court said that similar comments were made by the same judge against another practicing advocate. In that case, too, the SC had intervened, allowed the appeal and set aside all those observations.
In the Neeraj Garg case, the SC had said that "judicial comments should not be based on personal opinions and should not be made without giving the concerned lawyer an opportunity to explain".
"In view of the fact that the perception of the same judge has already been noticed in Neeraj Garg (supra), we do not need to re-examine the approach adopted by him even in this case," the court noted.
Dehradun: The Supreme Court bench of Justices Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Sandeep Mehta censured Uttarakhand high court (HC) Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma for making disparaging remarks against an advocate, saying that the comments regarding the lawyer's conduct were "unwarranted and unlawful".
"We disapprove of the proclivity of the HC judge in making remarks against advocates for nothing so serious to take note of," the SC said and set aside the orders dated Dec 1, 2020 and Dec 7, 2021, which were issued by the HC in response to two appeals seeking the removal of the remarks.
The HC order noted that the advocate, who was representing a respondent in the matter, had left the courtroom "without expressing the courtesy of informing the court that he needed to attend proceedings in other courts".
The apex court determined on Sep 24 that the comments made by the HC judge expressing displeasure over this were "unjustified", emphasising that "the advocate's conduct and the circumstances did not warrant the recording of such remarks".
Referring to a previous case ‘Neeraj Garg vs Sarita Rani & others (2021)', the top court said that similar comments were made by the same judge against another practicing advocate. In that case, too, the SC had intervened, allowed the appeal and set aside all those observations.
In the Neeraj Garg case, the SC had said that "judicial comments should not be based on personal opinions and should not be made without giving the concerned lawyer an opportunity to explain".
"In view of the fact that the perception of the same judge has already been noticed in Neeraj Garg (supra), we do not need to re-examine the approach adopted by him even in this case," the court noted.