Order Of Transferring Case May Mar Judge's Career For Life, Must Not Ordinarily Be Resorted To: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has observed that an order of transferring a case to another court may mar the career of the judicial officer for life and thus, such a step must not ordinarily be resorted to.

Justice C Hari Shankar said that transfer of a matter outside the court which is hearing it, and which has the jurisdiction to hear it, is an extremely serious matter.

“It is a step which is ordinarily not to be resorted to. It casts aspersions on the impartiality and, at times, even on the integrity, of the Judge hearing the matter,” the court said.

It added it is only where cogent, convincing and clear material is placed on record to indicate that either that the judge hearing the case is prejudiced or biased, or continuance of the proceedings in that court is bound to result in manifest injustice to either of the parties, that a court can transfer the matter outside that court.

“A single order of such transfer may, on occasion, mar the career of the judicial officer concerned for life,” the court said.

Justice Shankar made the observations while dismissing with Rs. 50,000 costs a plea seeking transfer of a suit pending before a District Judge of a commercial court to any other commercial court in the same district.

“This petition is an example of the pernicious practice, adopted by litigants in certain cases – which, mercifully, are few and far between – in which the jurisdiction vested in the High Court by Section 241 of the Code of Civil Procedure 1908 (CPC) is sought to be misused to seek transfer cases out of courts which are competent to deal with them, for the sole reason that orders passed by the court concerned are not palatable to the litigant,” the court said.

It observed that none of the grounds urged by the litigant made out a case for transferring the litigation outside the commercial court which was presently in seisin thereof.

“Applications such as the present are an abuse of process. A litigant cannot seek to argue a matter before a court which, according to a litigant, is the most convenient. Every order passed by a court which is not palatable to a litigant cannot constitute a basis to escape the court and argue the matter elsewhere. Such a practice has to be emphatically deprecated,” the court said.

It added: “This is all the more so where the litigation in question is a commercial litigation. It is a matter of common knowledge that, in commercial litigation, all stops are pulled out and the litigant tends to resort to every possible method to prejudice the proper continuance of the proceedings.”

Counsel for Petitioner: Mr. Mayank Wadhwa, Ms. Muskan Gupta, Mr. Shorya Goel, Ms. Niti Khanna, Ms. Srishti Raichandani and Ms. Tushita Arya, Advs

Title: SANJAY GOEL v. MAJESTIC BUILDCON PVT. LTD.

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Del) 571

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