RAMESH KUMAR, BANWARI LAL Vs. SATYA PARKASH SHARMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Application for transfer is made on the ground that he has no confidence in the Court since the respondent is a practicing counsel in that Court and the manner of adjournment of the case made by the Court from 24.04.2012 to 14.08.2012 without passing an order in the application for stay excites suspicion. If a case is adjourned to a date which is inconvenient, it ought to have been stated so before the Court and an order requested to be passed immediately. A mere adjournment of the case cannot be a groundTransfer for creating a suspicion in the mind of the party. Same way, I cannot allow for the fact that a litigant is a lawyer to prevail to make an inference that the lawyer will have influence over the Judge. It is a daily experience that many a lawyer figure as litigants themselves in matters pertaining to their own properties or personal interest and if we must start looking for a prejudice in the mind of the Judge towards a lawyer by the fact that the lawyer has turned out to be a litigant, then we need to believe ourselves to be guided by a new jurisprudence that the lawyers cannot have any cases in the Court where they are practicing and they must look for new jurisdiction to file the cases. This shall not be.

(2.) The learned counsel relies on a judgment of this Court in Yoginder Sarin Versus Varinder Kumar Sarin, 1993 1 RRR 492 where this Court has found that when respondent is the practicing advocate, it would be in the interest of justice that the case is not tried by a Court where he was practicing. Respectfully I disagree with the view taken by this Court earlier to the above extent.

(3.) The learned counsel also refers to a judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Kulwinder Kaur @ Kulwinder Gurcharan Singh Versus Kandi Friends Education Trusst and others, 2008 1 RCR(Civ) 821, where the Court was making an observation about the fact that no progress had been made for 3 years as a ground for making a transfer. We do not have a situation of a trial being needlessly held up by the conduct of a Judge. AnTransfer adjournment by 4 months is hardly a reason to excite a suspicion in mind of the litigant. The learned counsel also refers to me to the observations of the Court about the need for a free trial before a Court. I have no reason to suspect that a free trial or an unbiased approach would be lost by the fact that one of the parties is a practicing lawyer.