Delhi High Court slaps ₹10k fine on lawyer for 'outrageous aspersions' on judge

The Delhi High Court recently imposed a fine of ₹10,000 on a lawyer (petitioner) for casting aspersions on a judge who had previously dismissed his plea [Ravi Kumar vs. Department of Space and Ors.]..The Bench comprising Justices C Hari Shankar and Girish Kathpalia dismissed a review petition filed by advocate Ravi Kumar, who appeared in person, challenging an order passed against him in a recruitment matterThe Court found no "error apparent on the face of record" warranting a review of the earlier order. The Court also took exception to the petitioner's conduct and characterised his approach as an attempt to “overawe” the Court.“No litigant, much less an advocate appearing as litigant in person, can be allowed to try to browbeat the court. Of course, the court should not be over-sensitive. But when despite the court repeatedly ignoring such conduct of the litigant and repeatedly advising him to confine his submissions to merits of the case, the litigant contumaciously continues efforts to overawe, the least the court should do is to bring that conduct on record,” the Court said in its order of October 5. .The case arose from a decision by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) which had rejected Kumar’s application for recruitment to an Administrative Officer position at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).After not being selected, Kumar approached the CAT, arguing that the interview process was unfair. He claimed that despite achieving the highest score in the written examination, he was not chosen for the position.However, the CAT dismissed his application after finding that the selection criteria set by the authorities had been properly adhered to. A plea challenging the CAT ruling was also dismissed by the Delhi High Court in 2018..Kumar then filed a review petition and sought to revisit the High Court's 2018 judgment. Kumar alleged that the High Court ruling contained four critical factual errors including misapplication of the normalization method and erroneous interpretation of his marks.However, the Court found no merit in these claims and described the petitioner's approach as “cherry-picking” sentences to support his arguments while ignoring the broader context of the judgment.“In the present case, what the petitioner has done is cherry-picking of sentences from the judgment, ignoring the overall discussion and analysis of the rival contentions, which has been crystalized above,” the Court lamented..The Court also took strong objection to Kumar's conduct and said that in his previous petition, he had used “outrageous” language which suggested that the judgment under challenge was hastily authored before one judge’s elevation."We took strong objection to the tone and tenor of the petition, so vide order dated 18.10.2024 the review petitioner, expressing regrets sought permission to withdraw the same with liberty to file afresh with temperate language," the Court noted.The Court went on to observe that despite its warnings, the petitioner again accused the earlier Bench of "copy-pasting" the CAT's observations in the 2018 judgment. "(The petitioner) continued repeating the so called errors in the judgment and extraneous submissions alleging scams in government service; we concluded the proceedings by reserving the judgment," the Court recounted..It proceeded to dismiss the review plea as frivolous, after noting that review powers are reserved for instances of patent error and not for rehearing a matter on its merits."A review is by no means an appeal in disguise whereby an erroneous decision is reheard and corrected. Review lies only for patent error...A review petition, it must be remembered has limited purpose and cannot be allowed to be an appeal in disguise," the Court said..The Court further imposed costs of ₹10,000 on the lawyer/ petitioner and ordered that this amount be paid to the Delhi High Court Legal Services Committee..The petitioner, Ravi Kumar appeared in person.The respondents were represented by Central Government Standing Counsel Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar with advocates Srish Kumar Mishra and Alexandar Mathai Paikaday..[Read Judgment]