Justice Sadhana S Jadhav recuses from Bhima Koregaon cases; third Bombay High Court judge to recuse

A third Bench of the Bombay High Court led by Justice Sadhana S Jadhav on Tuesday recused from hearing a clutch of petitions filed in the Bhima Koregaon case of 2018. .Justice Jadhav is the third judge to recuse from the case. Earlier, Justices PB Varale and SS Shinde had also recused from the matter. When the plea was called out for hearing on Tuesday, Justice Jadhav stated that "this matter not (be listed) before me". The matters reached Justice Jadhav after going through multiple judges. .From 2020 to 2021, the Bench led by Justice Shinde was hearing the writ petitions relating to the Bhima Koregaon incident.Towards the end of 2021, the assignment for writ petitions was transferred to another Bench led by Justice Nitin Jamdar, followed by Justice PB Varale.Justice Varale, however, recused from hearing the matters after which the the matters were sent to an alternate Bench which happened to be headed by Justice Shinde..Shinde then recused himself and the defence lawyers then approached the Chief Justice of the Court on the administrative side to get the matters assigned to a Bench. The Chief Justice assigned those matters to be heard by a Bench led by Justice SB Shukre. Justice Shukre heard and rejected the pleas filed by one of the co-accused Varavara Rao seeking permanent bail. His temporary bail was, however, extended by 3 months. Starting this week, Justice Shukre was transferred to the Nagpur Bench. Hence the matters in the case came to be listed before the next alternate Bench, which was of Justice Jadhav..With Justice Jadhav too recusing from the case, the defence lawyers will once again approach the Chief Justice to get the matters assigned to a new bench. .Note: Justice Jadhav is the third judge who has recused herself from hearing all matters pertaining to Bhima Koregaon case. In 2019, single judges Justice Nitin Sambre and Justice Revati Mohite Dere recused themselves from hearing a matter filed by the Bhima Koregaon accused seeking default bail. While Justice Dere did not specify why she was recusing herself from the case, Justice Sambre specified that he was recusing because of Surendra Gadling, one of the accused in the case, who is also a lawyer.