‘Serious Questions on Judicial Propriety’: EC Connection of SC Judge's Son Sparks Concern
New Delhi: A lawyers' body as well as some prominent persons have expressed concern over reports that a son of Supreme Court Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, who this week heard challenges against the 2023 law governing top appointments to the Election Commission of India (ECI), is listed as a lawyer for the poll panel in the Madhya Pradesh high court.
They noted that Justice Sharma also heard Gautam Buddha Nagar district magistrate Medha Roopam's challenge against an Allahabad high court decision quashing her detention order against a student activist in the Noida violence case and reprimanding her for it. Roopam happens to be Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar's daughter. A bench comprising Justice Sharma had granted partial relief to Roopam in the matter.
Investigative journalist and Cockroach Janta Party co-convenor Saurav Das had first reported on Thursday that Justice Sharma's son holds a number of official panels at the high court.
“We do not know whether this was brought to the notice of the parties in either matter,” the Lawyers' Association for Constitution (LAFC) said on Friday (September 25), referring to Justice Sharma's son Siddharth Sharma being reportedly listed as standing counsel for the EC in the Madhya Pradesh high court.
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In its statement, the LAFC continued that it was concerned about “how these circumstances may appear to the public”. “The Supreme Court has long held that the test in such situations is not whether a judge was in fact influenced. The test is whether a fair-minded and informed observer might reasonably apprehend a possibility of bias,” it said.
Manu Sebastian, managing editor of LiveLaw, also wrote that Das's claim raises “serious questions concerning judicial propriety”.
“Can a judge be expected to decide against an entity if his child's professional growth is dependent on that very entity?” Sebastian asked.
What matters in this case, he argued, is not whether Justice Sharma was really influenced by his son's reported empanelment. “… The matter is also about perception. As it is often said, ‘Justice must not only be done, but also be seen to be done’.”
He also argued that Justice Sharma's opinion holding that challenges against the EC appointments law ought to be referred to a constitution bench has had the effect that “the hearing of this matter, which is integrally connected to the survival of Indian democracy, will be further delayed”.
Justice Dipankar Datta, the other judge on the bench hearing the case, was not in favour of referring the matter to a larger bench, but the judges placed the matter before the chief justice to form a constitution bench to hear the challenges. Opponents of the Modi government-piloted law say it loads the selection process for election commissioners in favour of the executive.
The LAFC asked that the Supreme Court's decision granting partial relief to Roopam be revoked and the matter “be listed before the bench that holds the regular roster”. “We also respectfully request that the question of referring the challenge to the 2023 Act to a Constitution Bench be heard afresh by a bench of which Justice Sharma is not a member,” the group said.
It also suggested that the apex court “consider a transparent protocol on disclosure and recusal where close relatives of a judge are engaged as counsel by a party or an interested institution”.
Justice Sharma's decision in the Roopam case, where he and Justice N. Kotiswar Singh stayed the Allahabad high court's move to compensate student activist Akriti Chaudhary with an amount of Rs 5 lakh to be drawn from the salaries of officials including Roopam, has been controversial because of its unusual placement.
Gursimran Kaur Bakshi of LiveLaw had reported earlier this week that Roopam's challenge against the high court order was placed before Justice Sharma's bench even though this bench is not ordinarily assigned preventive detention and habeas corpus-related cases per the Supreme Court's roster.
This case had attracted further controversy due to the bench's decision to mute the audio of the livestreamed proceedings.
Mahua Moitra, an MP of the Mamata All India Trinamool Congress, also asked whether the case's allotment to Justice Sharma was appropriate. “How can his [Siddharth's] father hear Gyanesh Kumar CEC’s case? How can he be put out of turn to give relief to CEC daughter?” she wrote on X.
This article went live on September twenty-sixth, two thousand twenty six, at forty-two minutes past eleven in the morning.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
