In a sharp rebuke against baseless allegations, the Delhi High Court has ordered two litigants to pay ₹50,000 for spinning what it called an “imaginary story” accusing a trial judge of favoritism.
The duo had filed a plea seeking to move their rent recovery case out of a Tis Hazari courtroom, claiming that the presiding Additional District Judge spoke to the opposing party in a “friendly manner.” Justice Saurabh Banerjee, unimpressed by the claim, found the petition riddled with fiction rather than fact.
“The petitioners are casting unwarranted, fictitious and fallacious aspersions on a sitting judge by cooking up an imaginary story,” the court remarked, calling the plea a product of “whims and fancies” and a “figment of infertile imagination.”
The High Court further pointed out that the litigants had continued to appear before the same judge after the alleged incident and hadn’t even filed an affidavit from their counsel to back their claims. It also surfaced that the petitioners had earlier moved — and then quietly withdrawn — a similar transfer request before the Principal District and Sessions Judge.
Finding no substance in their accusations, the High Court dismissed the plea and directed the petitioners to deposit ₹50,000 with the Delhi High Court Bar Association’s Lawyers Social Security and Welfare Fund within two weeks.
Justice Banerjee’s message was unmistakable: the courtroom is not a stage for dramatics, and those who try to script fantasy in the name of justice will pay for it — literally