Bar hits back: Contempt petition filed against Justice Lok Pal Singh of Uttarakhand HC

It would seem that the chickens have come home to roost for Justice Lok Pal Singh of the Uttarakhand High Court. A contempt petition has been filed against the controversial judge in light of the derogatory remarks made by him against lawyers appearing before his court..Advocate Chhitij Kishore Sharma has filed the contempt petition, praying that the High Court take suo motu cognizance of the alleged contempt committed by Justice Singh. The petition has been filed in light of remarks made against Sharma, his colleague Soniya Chawla, Advocate General for Uttarakhand SN Babulkar, and government advocates GS Sandhu and Paresh Tripathi, as well as Senior Advocate and former Allahabad High Court judge Pradeep Kant. The petition states,.“…while performing functions of a Judge of a High Court, the Hon’ble Judge must not be either hypersensitive or swung by emotions but must act judicially as it is no part of the judicial function to be vindictive or allow any personal or other considerations to enter in the discharge of the functions as vested in the Hon’ble Judge.”.In his petition, Sharma also claims that Justice Singh made utterances against judges of the High Court..Over the course of his tenure as a judge, Justice Singh has made adverse remarks against several lawyers appearing before him. But the straw that appears to have broken the camel’s back seems to be the hearings in Writ Petition 2368 of 2017, during which the judge is alleged to have made “unbearable utterances” against a number of lawyers..The judge had even passed an order almost calling for contempt proceedings to be initiated against AG Babulkar. The petition states that when the AG asked the judge not to make such adverse comments, he “went on to observe that he is not scared of any one and he will haul up every lawyer who would not follow him”. Justice Singh had even allegedly threatened to send the lawyers to jail..And it is not only the Bar that has faced the ire of Justice Singh; the petition claims that a litigant was also humiliated in his court. As per the petition, the litigant, who was not required to be present for the hearing but was in court anyway, was called upon by Justice Singh and questioned. When the litigant could not provide answers, the judge allegedly said,.“Tu beimani ke paise kha khakar itna mota ho gaya hai aur tere sharir par jo charbi chadhi hai sari ki sari utarva kar rakh dunga aur tujhe yahin se jail bhej dunga.” (You have become fat after making money by dishonest means. I will remove the fat from your body and send you straight to jail)..To make matters worse, the judge allegedly ordered police constables to take the litigant into custody. Later, the constables were directed to take the litigant to the back of the court room, where he was forced to keep standing for about half an hour, till the hearing concluded..The petition points to another instance where Justice Singh made certain remarks against former Allahabad High Court judge and now practicing Senior Advocate, Pradeep Kant. He is alleged to have said,.“Hum jaante hain ye kaise senior advocate hain or kaise judge the.” (I know what kind of Senior Advocate he is and what kind of judge he was)..Justifying the call for action under Section 2(c) read with Sections 15 and 16 of the Contempt of Courts Act, the petition states,.“Merely sitting on the Chair of the Judge of Hon’ble High Court does not mean that the Hon’ble Judge is acting during the discharge of official function, and, under no circumstances the said utterance can fall under the judicial act nor the said utterance can be said to be a fair criticism of judicial act and, thus, it is apparent that the Hon’ble Judge while purported to act judicially is not acting during the discharge of official function, rather is acting whimsically.”.It is further stated,.“The aforesaid facts and circumstances prove beyond any shadow of doubt that his lordship has lowered the dignity, majesty and authority of this Hon’ble Court by using the words mentioned above and establishing the fact that Hon’ble Mr. Justice Lokpal Singh has committed a criminal contempt of this Hon’ble Court….…The plain reading of the orders passed by him in the aforesaid cases clearly indicates his unwarranted interference with the due course of any judicial proceeding and said act also fall within the definition of ‘obstruction in the administration of justice’.”.Therefore, it has been prayed that the High Court take suo motu cognizance of the matter in order to “save the dignity and majesty of the institution, in the interest of justice”..Justice Singh is not stranger to controversy; over the course of this year, he has issued a contempt notice against a law officer, stopped short of doing the same to the Advocate General, threatened to strip a Senior Advocate of his designation, and imposed costs on lawyers appearing before him..Read the petition: