'Illusions no ground to recuse': Delhi HC Judge rejects Kejriwal’s plea

Delhi High Court judge Swarana Kanta Sharma on Monday said the mere apprehension that one may not get relief from a court cannot be a grounds for recusal of a judge from a case, as she dismissed the recusal pleas filed by AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and others in the liquor policy case. “If this court was to recuse, it would be an act of surrender and a signal that institution including judge and the court can be bent, shaken and changed. Justice Sharma said a political leader cannot be allowed to damage an institution without any basis, as a personal attack on a judge is an attack on the judiciary itself, and "a politician cannot be permitted to cross the boundary and sit in judgment over the competence of a judge".
Applications seeking recusal are rejected,” she ruled, and further said, "Personal apprehensions have not been able to pass the threshold of the ‘apprehension of bias’. Recusal has to step from law, and not from narrative; and this is a defining moment for the court.” She gave a number of arguments in her order on why she won't recuse from case even as Kejriwal expressed “apprehension of bias”.In this case, she said, the file seeking recusal “did not arrive with evidence but it arrived on my table with aspersions, insinuations and doubts cast on my integrity”. She added, “Judges are bound by the discipline of their office, and if they bow down to such vilification, it would not only be an attack on the individual judge but on the institution. Today it is this court; tomorrow it will be another court."