A Delhi Excessive Courtroom choose on Thursday mentioned he would recuse himself and switch to a different bench the anticipatory bail and FIR-quashing petitions filed by a 51-year-old advocate, who stands accused of repeatedly raping and assaulting a 27-year-old girl lawyer, on the grounds that listening to the pleas would quantity to reviewing his personal earlier order.
Justice Amit Mahajan mentioned he had already cancelled the advocate’s anticipatory bail on November 7 and that there was no change in circumstances warranting reconsideration. “I’ve already made up my thoughts… listening to this may quantity to reviewing my very own order,” the choose advised senior advocate Vikas Pahwa, who appeared for the accused.
Pahwa argued that circumstances had modified because the complainant and the accused entered right into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on November 29, wherein the girl said that she had no subsisting grievance towards his shopper. He submitted that the investigation was full, chargesheets had been filed, and no custodial interrogation was required.
The choose, nonetheless, indicated that he would dismiss each the anticipatory bail plea and the petition in search of quashing of the FIR, however mentioned the accused might search a listening to earlier than one other bench. The court docket listed December 22 as the following date of listening to, when each the problem to the trial court docket’s December 15 order and the quashing petition are scheduled to return up.
Earlier, on December 15, a trial court docket dismissed the advocate’s anticipatory bail plea, observing that regardless of alleging a grave offence comparable to rape, the complainant had made “extremely contradictory submissions” at totally different phases. In a 20-page order, the court docket famous that whereas the girl sought time on November 26 to file a protest petition earlier than the Justice of the Peace, she entered into an MoU simply three days later, on November 29, and later knowledgeable the court docket on December 13 that she wouldn’t pursue the protest.
The trial court docket order adopted Justice Mahajan’s November 7 ruling cancelling the advocate’s anticipatory bail and granting him per week to give up. In the identical order, the choose had additionally directed an administrative inquiry towards two district court docket judges accused of pressuring the girl to withdraw her rape allegations, terming the allegations a severe affront to the integrity of the legal justice system.
Subsequently, in a full court docket assembly on August 29, the Delhi Excessive Courtroom suspended one district choose, Sanjeev Kumar Singh, and beneficial disciplinary proceedings towards him and one other choose, Anil Kumar, based mostly on the girl’s grievance.
As first reported by PR on September 2, the girl’s allegations have been supported by audio recordings, prompting swift judicial intervention. Data of the complete court docket assembly of August 28, accessed by PR, confirmed that the motion towards the judges stemmed from complaints of grave judicial misconduct made by the girl earlier than chief justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya in July and later earlier than the registrar basic, following which a vigilance inquiry was ordered.
The complainant has additionally alleged that she was launched to a then sitting Delhi HC choose in January 2025 by the accused’s lawyer, who promised to safe her appointment as a regulation researcher.
