Retired judge moves Delhi HC for contempt action against lawyer

A retired district court judge on Tuesday urged the Delhi High Court to initiate contempt proceedings against a lawyer for interfering with the administration of justice after he was convicted of assaulting her when she was a lawyer and argued that no convict should be allowed to browbeat and bully the court.

A bench headed by Justice Siddharth Mridul asked the former judge, Sujata Kohli, to place on record the relevant CCTV footage of the alleged incident within a week in order to enable the court to form a prima facie opinion in the contempt case.

“We are as concerned as anybody else with respect to how court proceedings have to be conducted and how decorum has to be maintained. If you place the CCTV footage on record, it will go a long way. We view contempt very seriously,” said the bench, also comprising Justice Anup J Bhambhani.

On October 29 last year, a trial court had convicted Delhi High Court Bar Association's (DHCBA) ex-president Rajiv Khosla in the assault case for offences punishable under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the India Penal Code (IPC).

Kohli had alleged that Khosla grabbed her by her hair and dragged her in August 1994.

In her petition before the high court, she claimed that the trial court proceedings on the issue of sentencing were “literally hijacked” and “obstructed” by Khosla and his supporters.

“What follows after conviction is very sad and unfortunate. There were a series of acts done by the convict, an officer of the court and a leader of the Bar,” Kohli told the court as she asserted that an example has to be set in this case for the benefit of young lawyers.

She alleged that after his conviction, Khosla made an “appeal to the Bar bodies to join him” and they sided with him while deciding to go on a strike. She added that Khosla's conduct was also objectionable inside the court room.

“Are we going to allow convicts to stare into the eyes of the court, to browbeat the court, to bully the court?”, she questioned as she urged the court to call for the entire trial court record including the recording of the hybrid hearings on sentencing.

“The convict/respondent (Khosla) has, by publication of material on social groups etc, collected mob support to strike work to boycott the concerned court and to be physically present with huge numbers of lawyers/ leaders in the court room, shouting slogans standing on chairs, calling the particular judge on his face as 'biased' and calling '95% of judges as being corrupt',” the petition said.

“All the acts and words of the convict/respondent in protest of the judgment of conviction, scandalized the Court, lower down its dignity in the public eye and was calculated to do so, it was meant to shake the faith of the people at large, in judicial institution,” it added.

Kohli told the court that there was nothing personal left in the matter and she filed the present contempt case in furtherance of her duty as a citizen of this country.

“This is a matter that should have come from the (trial) court as a reference but it has been left to me,” she said.

“The petitioner/complainant/victim by the present petition seeks initiation of contempt proceedings against the convict/respondent, who by a series of acts & words has directly interfered with administration/dispensation of justice, has interfered with the due process of law, has scandalized the court on its face, leaving the court totally helpless (and) desperate,” the petition said.

It questioned if a convicted Bar leader and his supports “have an inherent right to derail the entire court proceedings and bring them to a halt”.

Chaos had erupted in a courtroom in Delhi's Tis Hazari court on November 30 last year with lawyers chanting slogans and standing atop tables and chairs as they awaited the pronouncement of order on sentencing in the assault case.

After the argument and chanting of more slogans, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Gajender Singh Nagar had directed Khosla to pay a total compensation of Rs 40,000 to the state and the victim in the case.

After the pronouncement of the order, lawyers had chanted slogans of “Vakeel Ekta Zindabad” and “Rajiv Khosla Zindabad” and applauded.

Kohli, who was a lawyer at Tis Hazari court at the time of the incident of assualt, went on to become a judge in the Delhi judiciary and retired as a District and Sessions Judge in 2020.

The matter would be heard next on February 16.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)