Judge off case after lawyer’s FB post to him

Mumbai: Observing that an interaction with a litigant on social media could be grounds for a judge’s withdrawal from a case, the Bombay high court recently upheld the Pune district court’s decision to transfer a case from the roster of a judge after one of the lawyers in the matter commented on his social media account.

The division bench of Justices Shantanu Kemker and Nitin Sambre in its order said that under certain circumstances, a lawyer leaving a comment to a judge’s social media post could be seen as “professional misconduct”.

The bench held that that in such a circumstances, a judge recusing (withdrawing) himself from a case would be justified.  The matter arose when advocate Sonia Prabhu, one of the petitioners who represented her side of the family in a property dispute matter, commented on additional district judge S.B. Bahalkar’s Facebook account. Justice Bahalkar was hearing her case.  Even though the comment had nothing to do with the case, the HC deemed such interaction inappropriate. Judge Bahalkar approached district judge S.M. Modak and sought to recuse himself.

Following this, judge Modak ordered that the case be transferred to another judge.

Advocate Prabhu then moved the Bombay high court questioning the necessity to transfer the case. However, the high court held that the decision of the district judge was right.

The bench in its order observed, “The conduct of the lawyer in responding to the Facebook post of a judge who was hearing their appeals... could be viewed as professional misconduct.…”

The petitioner had also sought that the high court lay down guidelines as to whether a judge should withdraw from a case only because a lawyer or party involved in the matter had an interaction with him or her on social media. To this the bench held that, “Such a decision, whether to recuse or not, is purely within the domain of the said judge,”the high court  said, without laying down any rules.