Delhi Minister Satyendar Jain has approached the Delhi High Court challenging a trial court’s order to transfer the money laundering case against him to another judge. Hours after the trial court’s order, the plea was mentioned for urgent listing before a bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad which allowed it for listing on Monday.
Senior advocate Rahul Mehra, appearing for Jain, said he was challenging the transfer of matter to another judge as it was illegal. “The transfer (of case) was illegal,” Mehra said. As the chief justice sought to know what was the urgency, the senior counsel said the trial court has kept it for hearing on Friday itself and the matter will be heard on a day-to-day basis. Earlier, a Principal District and Sessions court of Rouse Avenue allowed an Enforcement Directorate (ED) application seeking transfer of the money laundering case against Jain to another judge, saying the overall circumstances could raise apprehension of a probable bias.
The ED had moved the petition seeking to transfer the case from the court of Special Judge Geetanjali Goel to any other competent judge stating that “there is a grave likelihood and a reason to believe that the issues (in the case) have been premeditated.”
Allowing the agency's application, Principal District and Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Gupta said: “In my considered opinion, the judge is a very upright officer. However, all the circumstances taken together are sufficient to raise a reasonable apprehension in the mind of the petitioner as a common man, not of any actual bias, but a probable bias.” Accordingly, the application is allowed and the case is withdrawn from the court of Special Judge Geetanjali Goel and transferred to the court of Special Judge Vikas Dhull, the Sessions judge added.
The Sessions court said the judicial process demands that a judge moves within the framework of relevant legal rules and the question is not whether the judge is actually biased, but whether the circumstances are such to create a reasonable apprehension in the mind of others that there is a likelihood of bias affecting the decision.“It is not necessary that the apprehension should arise from a single circumstance as it may be the cumulative effect of various circumstances–past and present,” it said.
Further, the Sessions court said that the agency's plea had to be tested from the point of view of public justice and not on the ground of hypersensitivity or relative convenience of a party.
Jain is accused of having laundered money through four companies linked to him. Meanwhile, noting that the present order was challenged in the Delhi High Court, Special Judge Vikas Dhull posted Jain's bail plea for hearing on September 27 at 2.30 pm.
