The single judge bench of Justice AJ Desai has also criticised the high court's registry for not following court's orders
Unhappy with the conduct of the state government and a BJP leader of Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC), a judge of the Gujarat High Court has recused himself from hearing a bunch of petitions on the controversial elections for mayor and deputy mayor in the civic body. The judge also lambasted the state government as well as the BJP leader—Pravin Patels—for "overreaching the process of law" in a petition seeking the latter's disqualification from GMC under anti-defection rules.
The single judge bench of Justice AJ Desai has also criticised the high court's registry for not following court's orders and accepting an affidavit from Patel on Tuesday without prior permission from his court. Justice Desai remarked that it was not "expected from the registry" as the court had already proceeded with the matter on Monday after Patel's counsel clarified that he is not going to file an affidavit and the matter be heard on merits.
Notably, the court was miffed with the state government, as well as Patel, for not filing affidavits in a 2017 petition filed by Congress's Shailendrasinh Bihola seeking Patel's disqualification from GMC under anti-defection rules. Interestingly, Patel got elected on a Congress ticket and later joined the saffron party to become a mayor.
While counsel for Patel, CB Upadhyaya, had sought adjournments time and again to file a reply in the matter, he eventually clarified the court on Monday that he does not want to file an affidavit and the court can proceed with the arguments of the contending parties on merits. Following this, the arguments of Bihola was completed by his counsel and the matter was adjourned to Wednesday as part-heard for further arguments.
However, in the meantime, Patel filed an affidavit on Tuesday directly before the registry and during Wednesday's hearing, the affidavit and the annexed documents were referred to by the counsel for the state government, something which was neither available with the judge nor with Bihola's counsel. This was objected by Bihola's lawyer as Patel had earlier submitted that he is not going to file an affidavit.
Thereafter, a visibly agitated Justice Desai lambasted the state government as well as Patel. He remarked: "The present petition is pending since long. However, no affidavit was filed by Patel or the state authorities. Considering such conduct of the parties, it is desired that the present petition is heard by another bench," Justice Desai remarked.
Notably, due to the multiple litigations, the result of the election for mayor and deputy mayor of GMC is lying with the HC and not made public.
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