Recently, two Supreme Court judges, Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Aniruddha Bose have recused themselves from hearing cases relating to West Bengal.
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.
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