Allahabad HC Dismisses Advocate's 'Vexatious' Plea To Initiate Criminal Contempt Case Against Gujarat HC Chief Justice

A bench of Justice Rajiv Gupta and Justice Surendra Singh-I termed the petition as 'frivolous', 'vexatious', 'irresponsible', 'merit-less' and 'misconceived' and added that in the interest of proper functioning of the Institution, such applications should be discouraged by all means.

#JustIN | #AllahabadHighCourt DISMISSES a petition filed by an Advocate to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Justice Sunita Agarwal (former Judge, #AllahabadHC; presently CJ #GujaratHighCourt).

HC calls the plea 'merit-less', 'vexatious' & 'irresponsible' pic.twitter.com/WQzjQwH1Z4

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) September 23, 2024

Essentially, the applicant, Advocate Arun Mishra, had moved to the High Court with a grievance that a Writ petition he moved in 2020 was dismissed by a division bench comprising Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Jayant Banerji (on December 7, 2020) without allowing him to present his arguments and a cost of ₹15,000 was also imposed upon him.

The applicant-advocate was also aggrieved with another order passed by a division bench led by Justice Agarwal on February 23, 2021, in which a matter in which he was appearing for the petitioner was dismissed for 'want of prosecution'.

It was his specific case that on the same day, though the cases of other counsels were not dismissed for want of prosecution and fixed for another date, his case was dismissed on the ground of non-prosecution.

He argued that the order was purposely passed in a biased manner with oblique motives just to harass and damage him, which, in fact tantamounts to contempt of her own Court.

However, finding no merits in his plea, the division bench, while rejecting his plea, observed thus:

“…we find that the aforesaid orders referred to by the applicant has been passed by the Division Bench presided over by the opposite party in exercise of its judicial discretion and based on the facts and circumstances of each case, which does not in any way tantamount to contempt of her own Court, for which, the applicant proposes to initiate the criminal contempt proceedings that too only against the opposite party.”

The Court also opined that, by no stretch of the imagination, Justice Agarwal's act and conduct in passing the orders in question fall within the domain of “Criminal Contempt” as defined in the Act.

The Court added that, as an Advocate, the Court expects a certain degree of responsibility and restraint from him as an Officer of the Court.

The Court also took note of the fact that the applicant-advocate had earlier raised his grievance by submitting an application to the Office of the Advocate General, U.P., seeking written consent to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Justice Agarwal; however, the said application was rejected on May 7, 2024.

The Court also noted that the HC had dismissed a writ plea challenging the Advocate General's refusal to grant permission to initiate criminal contempt proceedings as non-maintainable.

In this regard, the Court also observed that a citizen has no unfettered right to initiate criminal contempt proceedings as he may act more out of personal prestige and vendetta than out of motive to uphold the dignity of the Court.

Therefore, the Court further observed that in order to safeguard such a situation, the framers of the Act thought it necessary to restrict the filing of such applications directly and require them to be filed with the written consent of the Advocate General.

Here, it may be noted that Section 15(1) of the 1971 Act requires that the motion should be made by the Advocate General or a person with the consent in writing of the Advocate General.

The purpose of this provision is to ensure that the High Court is not flooded with frivolous motions but receives only motions of substance.