Former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has written to justice Swarana Kanta Sharma of the Delhi high court stating that neither he nor his counsel will participate in further proceedings before her in the CBI’s appeal against his discharge in the excise policy case, a week after his plea seeking her recusal was dismissed.
In a four-page letter written on Monday, the AAP chief said that after the dismissal of his application by the April 20 order, he had carefully reflected on the options available to him. He added, with “utmost respect”, that his well-founded apprehensions remained unresolved.
According to Kejriwal, the judgment left him with the difficult but unavoidable impression that what he had raised as a legitimate concern was instead perceived as a personal attack on the judge and an affront to the institution itself.
The letter stated that his plea of apprehension had been judicially understood as a personal and institutional affront, and that this understanding made it impossible for him to believe he could receive a hearing that appeared impartial before the court. It said the judgment spoke of “accusations hurled at me”, of a litigant attempting to prove that “the Judge herself is tainted”, and of the need to avoid sending a signal that the court could be “intimidated by a political litigant”.
“My well-grounded apprehensions, I say with utmost respect, have not been removed. After the said judgment, I am left with the painful and inescapable impression that what I had urged as a lawful plea of apprehension was received and answered as a personal attack upon Your Ladyship and as an assault on the institution itself. Those are not, with respect, answers to the case I had brought. They show me that my plea of apprehension has been judicially understood as a personal and institutional affront. That understanding itself now makes it impossible for me to believe that I can receive a hearing which appears impartial in this court,” the letter stated.
It added, “I must also state that the judgment rejecting recusal has itself become an additional and independent reason for my loss of confidence in the fairness of further proceedings before this Bench. A litigant can perhaps live with an adverse order. What is far more difficult to accept is a judgment whose language conveys that the litigant’s plea has been seen as a challenge to the Judge’s dignity, oath, and institutional standing. The judgment speaks of ‘accusations hurled at me’, of a litigant attempting to prove that ‘the Judge herself is tainted’, and of the need to avoid sending a signal that the Court can be ‘intimidated by a political litigant’. Those are not, with respect, answers to the case I had brought. They show me that my plea of apprehension has been judicially understood as a personal and institutional affront. And once that has happened, how do I expect that I would be heard on a wholly clean slate.”
On February 27, the trial court discharged Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and 21 others, holding that the CBI’s material did not even disclose a prima facie case, prompting the agency to challenge the order before the High Court.
On March 9, justice Sharma stayed the trial court’s direction for departmental action against a CBI officer, calling the remarks prima facie misconceived, and deferred ED proceedings.
On March 11, Kejriwal sought transfer of the case to another judge, which was rejected on March 13. He, along with Sisodia and four others, then moved an application before Justice Sharma seeking her recusal.
Kejriwal had sought recusal on the grounds of the judge’s repeated public association with the RSS’s legal front, the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad (ABAP), her children being empanelled with the Centre’s legal panel, and one of them allegedly receiving assignments from the law officer contesting the CBI’s appeal.
On April 20, the judge dismissed the applications, holding there was no “demonstrable cause” for recusal and warning that stepping aside on the basis of perceived bias would set a disturbing precedent. In her verdict, the court observed that a mere apprehension of not receiving relief cannot justify recusal, as it risks allowing litigants to influence the adjudicatory process.
The judge had granted a last opportunity to Kejriwal and others to file their replies and fixed April 29 and 30 for hearing the CBI’s appeal.
Besides the letter, Kejriwal also posted a video on X. “My hope of receiving justice from justice Swarana Kanta Sharma ji has been shattered. Listening to the voice of my conscience, adhering to the principles of Gandhi Ji, and with the spirit of Satyagraha, I have decided that I will not appear before her in this case and will not present any arguments either,” he said.
In his letter, the AAP chief also referred to instances where sitting high court judges across the country had recused themselves from matters in which their children or relatives, who were part of government legal panels, were involved.
“For instance, justice Sujoy Paul sought transfer from the Madhya Pradesh HC in 2024 because his son was practising in the same high court. Similarly, justice Atul Sreedharan from the same high court sought transfer in 2023 because his elder daughter was to begin practice before courts within the same State and the Indore Bench of that high court. A look back at history and one would find the case of Justice V Sivaraman Nair of the Kerala high court who had worked as a junior of the legendary Supreme Court judge, Justice Krishna Iyer. It is said that as soon as justice Nair’s daughter and daughter-in-law started practising in the Kerala high court, he requested he be transferred to another State,” the letter stated.
He said that in all three comparable instances involving issues similar to those raised in justice Sharma’s case, the judges chose to recuse themselves to ensure that justice remained above any shadow of doubt or controversy.
In contrast, Kejriwal argued that the present matter went beyond mere apprehension, pointing to what he described as clear evidence that both of the judge’s children were practising before the same high court on government panels, with one receiving a substantial number of cases from the same law officer now appearing before the court in a politically sensitive matter.
“They are instead grave, concrete, and impossible for any fair-minded citizen to ignore. In my own conscience, I have now reached a point where I can no longer meaningfully participate in these proceedings without feeling that I am lending my presence to a process in which my faith, in this specific context, stands deeply shaken. I cannot, in good conscience, argue as though nothing is amiss in these proceedings,” the letter added.