Jammu and Kashmir High Court expunges single judge's adverse comments against Senior Advocate AM Dar

A Full Bench of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has expunged the adverse observations made by Justice Javed Iqbal Wani against a Senior Advocate Abdul Majid Dar in an order passed earlier this year [Abdul Majid Dar V/S Noora Begum and others]..A Bench of Chief Justice N Kotiswar Singh, and Justices Tashi Rabstan and Sanjeev Kumar passed two orders to this effect on October 20..The Court also declined to entertain Dar's plea for an inquiry against Justice Wani on noting that the lawyer had already filed a separate complaint against the judge before the Chief Justice, which was still pending. .The matter concerns an incident that took place on August 23, 2023, when Justice Wani briefly initiated and dropped contempt proceedings against Dar.Dar was detained in Court on Justice Wani's orders for causing an interruption and remarking 'this is ridiculous' in the Court. The remark was made by Dar when he was not allowed to make arguments during a hearing presided over by Justice Wani in the case of Noora Begum v. Commissioner and others.The contempt proceedings were dropped the same day after other lawyers urged Justice Wani to take a lenient view of the matter. .However, Dar later sought to challenge Justice Wani's order in the matter by way of an appeal. The senior lawyer argued that he was condemned unheard and without following procedures such as the framing of charges. He was awarded the conviction in a most arbitrary manner and against the canons of law and rules governing the field, his appeal said..A Full Bench has now opined that Dar's appeal against Justice Wani's order was not maintainable since Justice Wani did not exercise powers under Article 215 of the Constitution or Section 19 of the Contempt of Courts Act. However, it ordered the deletion of Justice Wani's adverse comments against Dar."The learned Single Judge has made some adverse observations in the impugned order against the appellant which ought not to have been made without providing sufficient opportunity of hearing to the appellant which was not done in the present case. Accordingly, we close this appeal by expunging all the adverse observations made in the impugned order against the appellant," the Full Bench said..Further, a writ petition filed by Dar for an inquiry against Justice Wani was also closed as "not maintainable" by a separate order passed on October 20. "It appears that before filing the present writ petition on 22.09.2023, the petitioner had filed a complaint against the Hon’ble Judge before the Hon’ble Chief Justice on 21.09.2023. The petitioner without waiting for outcome of the said complaint filed the present writ petition on the very next day. In view of the above, we are of the opinion that this writ petition is not maintainable," the Court said. .Senior Advocate Vikas Singh along with advocate Danish Majid Dar appeared for AM Dar.Senior Advocates ZA Shah, and Sunil Sethi along with advocates A Hanan, and Parimoksh Seth appeared for various respondents. .[Read Orders]