Gujarat High Court slams Adv. Deepak Khosla for frivolous attempt to demean judges, senior lawyers

The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday berated advocate Deepak Khosla and his client, Gujarat Operational Creditors Association, for casting aspersions on at least three judges and accusing senior lawyers of having committed contempt of court [Gujarat Operational Creditors Association v. Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel India Ltd. & Ors.].A Bench of Justices AS Supehia and Gita Gopi said that an application filed by the association was an "epitome of frivolity", and proceeded to impose costs of ₹2 lakh for wasting the Court's time. "Indubitably, this application is absolutely ill-conceived, frivolous and is filed with an ill-motive to demean the learned Single Judges and the learned advocates appearing for the respondents, hence it deserves to be rejected by imposing exemplary costs ... The filing of the present application is a sheer wastage of judicial time. Hence, we impose a cost of Rs.2,00,000/- on the applicant," the Court ordered. It also criticised Khosla for using transcripts of livestreamed court hearings as evidence and suggested removal of such livestreams from YouTube after a certain period. However, the Bench added that it is up to the Chief Justice of the High Court to take a call on this issue. "We are of the opinion that the videos of the Court proceedings are required to be removed from the YouTube after a specific period. However, we leave it on the discretion of Hon’ble the Chief Justice. Registry is directed to apprise Hon’ble the Chief Justice in this regard," the Court said. .Advocate Khosla had objected to the repeated extension of an interim stay order against his client.The interim order was passed on August 8 last year and was being periodically extended even after an application was filed to vacate the said interim order. Khosla took objection to this, arguing that it amounted to a violation of Supreme Court orders. An application was filed accusing senior lawyers who sought extensions of the interim order of having committed contempt of court. Khosla also argued that it was wrong for more than one senior lawyer to have represented his client's legal opponent, Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel India Ltd..After two single judges - Justices Sangeeta Vishen and Vaibhavi D. Nanavati - recused from hearing the case, Khosla (on behalf of his client) accused them of judicial indiscipline. Allegations were also made against the next judge who dealt with the matter, Justice Nikhil S Kariel..These allegations were compiled and presented in an application to initiate proceedings for contempt of court against Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel India Ltd. and the senior lawyers who represented the company. The High Court, however, was not impressed. "The present application is epitome of frivolity. Instead of taking a legal and valid recourse of assailing the orders passed by the learned Single Judges in passing the interim orders, the present application appears to have been filed only for the sole reason of mortifying the learned advocates appearing for the respondents and the learned Single Judges," the Division Bench opined. It added that such a "preposterous application" was filed with vested interest and only indicated that advocate Khosla and his client had engaged in contemptuous conduct by making unwarranted remarks against judges. Further, the Bench found that advocate Khosla had placed reliance on unauthorised transcripts of the Court's livestream recordings from YouTube. As part of the application, a 259-page audio transcript had been presented, the Court noted. This violated the Gujarat High Court (Live Streaming of Court Proceedings) Rules, 2021, the Court found. "The Rules caution any party to use the court proceedings as an evidence, and in case, if it is done, (the rules) direct initiation of the proceedings under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 ...reliance placed on the unauthorized transcripts by learned advocate Mr.Khosla needs to be deprecated and highly condemned, which we do," the Court added. The Court proceeded to dismiss the contempt application by ordering advocate Khosla's client to pay ₹2 lakh as costs within two weeks. .This is not the first time that advocate Khosla has courted controversy. In 2016, the Supreme Court had initiated contempt proceedings against him and also restrained him from instituting any civil or criminal proceeding against any officer of the Registry of the Supreme Court without the leave of the Supreme Court. This was after Khosla moved the Supreme Court against a Delhi High Court which had held him in contempt for calling the Bench “Dedh bench” (one-and-a-half bench).Days later, the Court dismissed his plea seeking special leave to appeal after recording that the Delhi High Court's sentence of one-month imprisonment had been stayed so that Khosla may examine appropriate legal remedies, for which no special leave was required. In 2017, the Delhi High Court pulled up the lawyer for levelling objectionable allegations against opposing counsel including Senior Advocate Kirti Uppal.In 2021, he represented Bollywood actress Juhi Chawla in challenging the rollout of 5G in India, which was eventually dismissed as frivolous and driven by publicity.Khosla has also been in the news for championing the cause of enabling the audio recording of court proceedings. Long before court hearings were livestreamed, in 2015, a single judge of the Calcutta High Court even allowed Khosla to video record the proceedings in a case pending before it..Advocates Deepak Khosla and Jaydeep M Shukhla appeared for the applicant, the Gujarat Operational Creditors Association. Senior Advocate Mihir Joshi along with advocates Keyur Gandhi, Raheel S Patel, Isa Hakim, Yash Dadhich and Shivani Gupta of Gandhi Law Associates represented the respondents (Arcelor Mittal and its representatives)..[Read Order]