Baseless: Bombay High Court judge refuses to recuse over bribery allegations, slaps ₹50k costs

Justice Milind Jadhav of the Bombay High Court recently declined to recuse from hearing a set of land tenancy petitions, even as one of the petitioners accused him and another judge of corruption and bias. [Kalpesh Rajendra Jain v Pratibha Shailesh Shah and Ors].In an order dismissing the application for recusal, the Court described the accusations as “scurrilous” and “a sheer abuse of the due process of law” and imposed costs of ₹50,000 on the petitioner who sought the judge's recusal.Such allegations can never be allowed to be made against sitting judges and the judges will not cow down to such baseless allegations, the single-judge said.“The aforesaid allegations made in the complaint dated 17.07.2025 are extremely serious on the face of record. They are prima facie unsubstantiated and are made only to browbeat the Court into submission and nothing else and pass the order “Not Before Me”," the Court added..The case concerned three writ petitions filed in 2016 arising from proceedings under tenancy laws. The petitions were admitted in 2024 and remained pending for final hearing.In May this year, the matter was fixed for hearing after one of the respondents, stated to be 87 years old, cited urgency.At that time, the petitioners' lawyer had returned the brief and the court of Justice Sandeep Marne allowed time to appoint new counsel, continuing interim relief until the next hearing. In early July, the matter was listed again, now before Justice Jadhav, who had been assigned the case as per the court’s roster. However, when it came up for hearing, the petitioners’ new lawyer refused to argue, claiming the listing was done without their knowledge. The Court adjourned the matter, giving the petitioners further opportunity to prepare. On the next hearing date, no lawyer appeared. Instead, one of the petitioners, Kalpesh Rajendra Jain, appeared in person with his father and informed the Court that he had filed a complaint with the High Court Chief Justice and the Chief Justice of India.In the complaint, he accused both Justice Jadhav and Justice Marne of accepting bribes, acting under outside pressure and even making jokes in court about serious allegations..However, Justice Jadhav rejected the claim that the petitions had been listed without notice and clarified that they were listed in the ordinary course under the regular court roster.“Petitioners cannot decide the course of action of the Court and should not interfere with the discretion and prerogative of this Court,” the Court said.It added that the petitioners had been given ample opportunity to argue, but had refused to do so repeatedly..On the demand for recusal, the Court observed that acceding to such requests would send a wrong message.“If I were to accede to the prayer for my recusal on the above grounds, I would be initiating a wrong practice and laying down a wrong precedent. A Judge may recuse on his own from a case entrusted to him by the Chief Justice and that would be a matter of his own choosing. But recusal at the asking of a litigating party, unless justified must never to be acceded to. This would give the impression of the Judge being scared out of the case, just by the sheer force of the objection," it said.The Court noted that such conduct amounts to “forum shopping”, a tactic in which litigants try to manipulate which judge hears their case.Thus, Justice Jadhav refused to recuse himself in the interest of judiciary."I would be committing a grave blunder by recusing in the circumstances on the grounds which are prayed for and if I do so, I will be setting a bad precedent. It is only for the interest of the judiciary (which is supreme) and the system that has compelled me to not recuse myself," the single-judge said..Advocate Vijay Kurle along with Advocate Jayendra Manchekar appeared for the applicant.Senior Advocate Pravin Samdani and advocates Aditya Shiralkar, Mani Thevar and Nimesh Bhatt appeared for respondents..[Read Order]