Allahabad High Court rejects plea alleging bias in Gujarat High Court

The petition was filed by advocate Arun Mishra under Section 15(1)(b) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 against Justice Agarwal, who was previously a judge of the Allahabad High Court.

Mishra claimed that a writ petition in which he was acting as counsel was dismissed by a bench comprising Justice Agarwal and Justice Jayant Banerji in December 2020 without giving him an opportunity to present his arguments. Costs of ₹15,000 were also imposed in the case.

Mishra was also aggrieved by another order of a court headed by Justice Agarwal dated February 23, 2021, in which a case in which he represented the plaintiff, “dismissed due to lack of prosecution”.

He argued that in other petitions filed on the same day where the petitioners’ attorney did not appear, the cases were adjourned and rescheduled for another hearing.

He claimed that the order was issued deliberately and biasedly with indirect motives just to harass and harm him. He also claimed that the same “actually amounts to a disrespect for their own court.”