Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and AAP leader Manish Sisodia announced on Tuesday that he would not be appearing before Delhi High Court Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma in the excise policy issue going forward.
“No lawyer will appear on my behalf either,” Sisodia declared in a letter to Justice Sharma. Tushar Mehta is in charge of your kids’ destiny.”
The AAP leader said, “I do not expect justice; there is no path left except Satyagraha.”
The announcement was made the day after Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of the party, also chose not to appear in person or hire an attorney for his case before Justice Sharma.
“I find myself in respectful agreement with the stand taken by him, which is based on Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings on Satyagraha,” Sisodia stated in reference to Kejriwal’s letter.
After his request for Justice Sharma’s recusal was denied on April 20, Kejriwal submitted a letter to the High Court judge on Monday.
While he does not intend to reiterate every detail of what Kejriwal has already said, Sisodia indicated that he wants to document that the “troubling concerns” raised are issues that also concern him.
The letter stated, “The first is the issue arising from your Ladyship’s repeated public attendance of the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad, a lawyers’ organization publicly understood to belong to the RSS.”
“Your Ladyship’s children’s professional involvement on several union government panels and the ensuing appearance of closeness to the very law officers who now appear against me on the other side is the second issue,” he continued.
Such incidents raise a more disturbing question in this particular case: what were the minimal obligations of transparency and self-control that emerged? Did the parent-judge not have an obligation to inform the parties of these conditions at the outset?
That’s the challenge I’m facing today. Like Kejriwal, my worry is not motivated by animosity toward the Court. It stems from a profound discomfort that if I continue to take part in spite of these conditions, I will also be acting against my own conscience while feigning to my fellow citizens that all questions have been answered.
Therefore, the question at hand is straightforward: can I honestly continue to participate in these processes while harbouring grave concerns about the appearance of fair justice? My response, after careful consideration, is comparable to Kejriwal’s. “I am unable to,” Sisodia continued.
