SC Censures Uttarakhand HC Judge Over Former Client Case

(Judicial Quest News Network)

New Delhi, July 30, 2026-In a ruling that reaffirms one of the oldest and most foundational principles of judicial ethics that a judge must not hear a matter in which their impartiality could, even reasonably, be questioned the Supreme Court of India has formally censured a sitting judge of the Uttarakhand High Court for presiding over proceedings involving a company he had previously represented as a lawyer.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Sanjeev Sachdeva, passing its order on July 27 in the matter of Prateek Resorts and Builders Pvt Ltd v. Puneet Agrawal & Ors, said: “In such circumstances, in the interest of judicial propriety, the learned Judge ought not to have entertained and passed orders in the matter.”

The Constitutional Principle at Stake: Nemo Judex in Causa Sua

The Latin maxim nemo judex in causa Sua no person shall be a judge in their own cause is among the most ancient and most universally recognised principles of natural justice.

Its application has, across centuries of common law development and constitutional adjudication, been extended beyond the narrow question of direct personal interest to encompass every situation in which a judge’s prior associations, professional relationships, or personal connections could reasonably give rise to a perception of partiality whether or not any actual bias exists or is alleged.

It is this principle in its most institutionally significant form that the Supreme Court has now applied in censuring the Uttarakhand High Court judge.

The question before the bench was not whether the judge had decided the case wrongly on its merits, or whether his orders were tainted by actual bias.

The question was whether a judge who had previously appeared as counsel for a party could subsequently sit in judgment over proceedings in which that same party was a stakeholder and the Supreme Court’s answer was unequivocal.

The Court underscored that public confidence in the justice delivery system required judges to avoid hearing matters involving former clients, stating Trite to state, justice must not only be done but must also be seen to be done.

Passing orders either in favour of or against a former client, a private entity, does not further that cause.”

The formulation is precise and constitutionally important. It is not merely the judge who benefits from recusal it is the institution of justice itself, whose legitimacy depends on the public’s confidence that every matter before it has been decided by a wholly disinterested adjudicator.

The Facts: From Counsel to Judge in the Same Land Dispute

The case arose from a batch of interim orders passed by the Uttarakhand High Court in criminal writ petitions concerning land linked to Prateek Resorts and Builders Private Limited.

Before the Supreme Court, it was pointed out that the High Court judge had earlier appeared as counsel for the company in litigation concerning the very same parcel of land.

The company had also moved an application before the High Court seeking to be impleaded in the proceedings, which was still pending.

The factual matrix is, in terms of judicial propriety, as clear a case as could arise.

The judge was not merely connected to one of the parties by some distant or tenuous professional association. He had personally represented the company the entity whose land interests were at the centre of the High Court proceedings before his elevation to the Bench. And when the same company’s land became the subject of further litigation before that very Bench, he neither recused himself nor disclosed his prior representation. He heard the matter and passed interim orders.

The Supreme Court’s censure flows directly from that sequence of facts.

An Expanded Scope, and an Improper Remedy

The Supreme Court’s observations extended beyond the recusal failure to address a related impropriety in the conduct of the proceedings.

The Supreme Court also found that the scope of the writ petitions had been expanded through the interim orders to deal with issues that were not part of the original proceedings.

The bench said that even if this had been done with the best of intentions, it was not the proper course to adopt in writ petitions that were filed on entirely different issues.

It observed that if the judge believed the matter warranted consideration in public interest, he could have referred it to the High Court’s Public Interest Litigation Committee or placed it before the Chief Justice for appropriate action.

The observation identifies a second dimension of judicial overreach  the expansion of the proceedings’ scope beyond their original subject matter through interim orders and prescribes the constitutionally appropriate institutional channel through which a judge who perceives a broader public interest concern should direct the matter, rather than enlarging the proceedings under his own hand.

The Relief: Matter Transferred, Order Sent to the Chief Justice

The Court declined to interfere with the interim orders at this stage, noting that they were already operating and that undertakings had been given not to cut trees.

It directed that the matter be placed before an appropriate bench of the High Court, which would examine all issues afresh, including the validity of the interim orders.

The Supreme Court also directed that a copy of its order be sent to the Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court for appropriate steps regarding the future listing of the cases and the initiation of public interest litigation, if warranted.

The direction to send a copy of the order to the Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court is, in its institutional significance, the most consequential direction in the judgment.

It places the episode formally on record before the administrative head of the High Court signalling that the Supreme Court regards the conduct as a matter requiring institutional attention and appropriate supervisory response, beyond the mere disposal of the appeal before it.

The Wider Principle: What Recusal Protects and Why It Matters

The Supreme Court’s intervention in Prateek Resorts and Builders Pvt Ltd v. Puneet Agrawal & Ors is a reminder of a principle that is deceptively simple to state and surprisingly difficult to enforce in the day-to-day reality of a judicial system where judges bring to the Bench the entire professional history of their careers at the Bar.

Every judge of a High Court was, before elevation, a practising advocate.

Every practising advocate represents clients. Every client relationship creates, for the duration of that representation and for a significant period thereafter, a professional association whose existence, when a related matter comes before the former advocate now sitting as a judge, requires disclosure, consideration, and in most circumstances, recusal.

The period following elevation to the Bench during which a newly appointed judge must actively identify and recuse from matters involving former clients is one that requires institutional discipline, personal self-awareness, and a genuine commitment to the principle that the appearance of impartiality is as important to the administration of justice as its substance.

The Restatement of Values of Judicial Life adopted by the Supreme Court of India’s Full Court in 1997 specifically addresses this obligation, providing that a judge should not hear and decide a matter in which a company in which he holds shares is a litigant, and more broadly that no judge shall act in a manner which may reasonably be perceived as motivated by self-interest.

The Supreme Court’s order of July 27 carries, beyond the immediate resolution of the Uttarakhand High Court matter, a message of enduring institutional importance that judicial propriety is not a courtesy extended to the parties before the court, but a constitutional obligation owed to the institution of justice itself and to every citizen who invests their trust in it.