Chief Justice Bhushan Ramakrishna Gavai has expressed displeasure over criticizing the judges of the High Court and Trial Court and said that it has become a trend to criticize the lower adults judges among the lawyers. On Monday (August 11, 2025), he has directed a petitioner and his lawyers to seek unconditional apology from the Telangana High Court Judge Maushami Bhattacharya.
According to the report of the Bar and Bench, Chief Justice Bhushan Ramakrishna Gavai, Justice K.K. A bench of Vinod Chandran and Justice Atul S Chandurkar gave this direction during the hearing on the contempt petition with automatic cognizance. The bench said that the allegations against the High Court judges are contempt and cannot be forgiven.
This case is related to the transfer petition filed by N. Paddy Raju. In this, the High Court judge, who dismissed a criminal case under the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) Act, was accused of biased and unfairly behaved against Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy.
CJI BR Gawai said, ‘We cannot allow the judges to stand in the dock and make such allegations. The judges of the High Courts are constitutional officers and they have the same respect and exemption as the judges of the Supreme Court.
Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde, who was advocating the contempt notice case, apologized unconditionally and explained the circumstances in which these statements were made. CJI Gawai said that such conduct has become a disturbing trend when lawyers and plaintiffs question the honesty of the judges in politically sensitive matters. He said that it has become a trend nowadays that if there is a case related to a politician, then they assume that there will be no justice in the High Court about that case.
Citing a decision of the Constitution Bench, Chief Justice BR Gavai said that the litigants and lawyers can be convicted of contempt for making derogatory allegations against the judges.
The bench directed that the case already dealt with should be reopened in the Telangana High Court and presented before the concerned judge within a week, as well as ordered the petitioner to apologize unconditionally before the judge.
The court said that after this, the judges will decide in a week whether the apology should be accepted or not. Chief Justice Gawai recently referred to the decision of a three -judge bench, in which such situations were taken on accepting forgiveness rather than punitive action. He said, ‘Intelligence lies in forgiveness instead of punishing.’