NCLAT Judge Records In Order His Brother's Message For Favour, Recuses From Matter

A judicial member of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal has recused from hearing a matter after his brother messaged him requesting favourable orders in the case.

Interestingly, in the recusal order, the judge extracted the entire message verbatim.

The extraordinary event took place before the bench presided by Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma at the NCLAT Chennai Bench. Justice Sharma stated in the order that he was "approached" by his real brother.

The message was extracted as follows :

"Brother, what can be in this paper that I am sending, what is the possibility of it happening, please try to give proper advice. This is a matter of your own court. My intention is not to hurt in any way and if I have caused any kind of trouble, then I apologize."

The message then referred to the reliefs sought in the appeal and said "it is our personal matter." The rest of the message reproduced in the order is as follows :

"I apologize to your court and your profession. I have never made this request before but what I am doing, I am saying it for the first time to the court that this is our personal matter. There is no pressure of any kind because whatever decision you and the court take, we will accept it. I just request that you can reserve this matter as per your discretion and if there is even the slightest scope, it will be better if you have complete information about it. I am requesting once again that I have no doubt on your thoughts, feelings and decision and neither do I intend to hurt you, this is my first request that you accept it and reserve it. It is not an order, it is a request”.

Justice Sharma said, "with a sorry note", that he cannot hear the matter. On getting to know about this message, the senior counsel appearing for the appellant also decided to withdraw from the appearance.

Case : Mr. Babu Manoharan Jaikumar Christhurajan V Mr. Umesh Garg & 2 Ors |Company Appeal (AT) (CH) (Ins) No.358/2022

Click here to read the order