3 min readApr 22, 2026 06:00 AM IST First published on: Apr 22, 2026 at 06:00 AM ISTDelhi High Court judge Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma’s rejection of former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s recusal plea in the liquor policy case brings to an end a troubling exchange. Underlining that “justice is not achieved by bowing to pressure,” Justice Sharma held that a litigant cannot be allowed to judge a judge without material evidence, and judges cannot recuse themselves merely to satisfy unfounded apprehensions of bias. There can be little disagreement with this but two issues frame this episode: The imperative to protect judicial independence, which is threatened when motives are imputed through hearsay and speculation; and the disquieting pattern of opposition leaders in the dock after being targeted by central agencies.In a polarised polity, the temptation to blur the line between courtroom and political battleground is ever-present. Litigants have been known to withdraw cases rather than argue before a judge they distrust. This erodes public faith in an institution already strained by delays and deficits. Kejriwal went further, personally arguing the plea, questioning the judge’s “ideology” based on her attendance at certain public events. That sets a perilous precedent and turns the courtroom into an arena of accusation. As Justice Sharma cautioned, such pleas risk converting every bench into a veto point for the aggrieved. His argument that the judge had earlier denied him bail relief, and similarly denied Manish Sisodia and K Kavitha, is undercut by the manner in which a trial court subsequently discharged Kejriwal and the other accused. This affirms the primacy of due process over the disposition of any individual judge.AdvertisementYet judges, with due respect, need to look within. Their system of checks and balances — opaque by design, justified as a shield for independence — places the greater burden of self-regulation on the judiciary itself. When political discourse outside the courtroom is so fractured, judges must be careful about which stages they share and which they decline. Just as judicial assets are subject to disclosure, appointments of judges’ family members to government panels — where governments are themselves frequent litigants — should be brought within the ambit of transparent public disclosure. More structurally, the MP/MLA (Criminal) roster, conceived to streamline cases against elected representatives, has often come to concentrate a disproportionate share of high-profile Opposition cases before a single judge. A polyvocal court — where benches are rotated and no single judge becomes the face of political prosecutions — is among the judiciary’s strongest institutional safeguards. The court must diversify its pool and rotate its benches, not as a concession to political pressure, but as a guarantee of its own integrity. As for the litigant, VIP or otherwise, let this episode also be a cautionary lesson: Targeting the judge isn’t sharp legal strategy, it distracts from, and can even weaken, the argument.