Context
Recently, two Supreme Court judges, Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Aniruddha Bose have recused themselves from hearing cases relating to West Bengal.
What is recusal of judges?
- In the situation of conflict of interest, a judge can withdraw from hearing a case.
- The conflict of interest can be
- from holding shares in a company that is a litigant
- personal association with a party involved in the case
- The recusal comes from the cardinal principle of due process of law that nobody can be a judge in her case.
- The decision to recuse generally comes from the judge herself. In some circumstances, lawyers or parties in the case bring it up before the judge.
- Judges can refuse to recuse- for example in 2019, Justice Arun Mishra refused for it.
- There are no formal rules governing recusals.
- In Ranjit Thakur v Union of India (1987), the Supreme Court held that the test of the likelihood of bias is the reasonableness of the apprehension in the mind of the party.
- The code of ethics- the 1999 charter ‘Restatement of Values in Judicial Life’ also talks about the recusal of judges.
- There are no formal rules to record the reason for recusal.
Cardinal principle of due process of law
- Due process is the principle to ensure the government must respect all of the legal rights that are owed to a person according to the law.
- The due process holds the government subservient to the law of the land.
- It helps in protecting individual persons from the state.
|
