Justice UU Lalit offers to recuse from hearing Prashant Bhushan’s plea seeking right to appeal

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 6

Do convicts of criminal contempt of court have the right to appeal? As the Supreme Court took up the contentious issue raised by activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan on Friday, Justice UU Lalit offered to recuse from hearing Bhushan’s plea seeking right to appeal against convictions in original criminal contempt cases to be heard by a larger different Bench.

Justice Lalit, who was heading a three-judge Bench, said he was appointed as amicus curiae in one of the cases related to Bhushan. In contempt cases, the Supreme Court was the aggrieved party, the “prosecutor, the witness, and the judge” and hence they raise fear of inherent bias, Bhushan, who was convicted of contempt of court in 2020, contended.

Justice Lalit asked the advocate for Bhushan to file an affidavit stating he had no objection, if he heard the case. As advocate Rajeev Dhavan requested Justice Lalit to go ahead with the hearing, the judge asked him to file an affidavit and deferred the hearing to May 17.

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