In a rare move, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said that he and his lawyers would not participate or argue further in the excise case proceedings before Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma.
In a letter to Sharma, former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal highlighted the “serious issue of conflict of interest” and said that both of Sharma’s children are “professionally involved in the panels of several advocates of the Union government”.
He said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the opposite party in the excise policy case against Kejriwal.
Earlier, Kejriwal had demanded that the excise case be transferred by Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma to another judge, saying that if the matter remains with Justice Sharma, “the matter may not be heard impartially and neutrally”.
Justice Sharma, however, dismissed Kejriwal’s plea for her removal in the case. According to the Bar and Bench, the judge said that a politician cannot sow seeds of mistrust and that Kejriwal’s plea to reject it amounted to putting the judiciary before the court.
Conflict of interest
In his April 27 letter to Sharma, Kejriwal said that Tushar Mehta, Solicitor General, is the advocate on the opposite side and both the children of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma are being “directly assigned cases” by Tushar Mehta.
Kejriwal said, “Tushar Mehta decides how many and which cases should be allotted to Your Ladyship’s children. If they are allotted more cases, they will get more fees.”
He argued that a “sequence of events” must heighten public concern.
Sharma was elevated to the Delhi High Court in March 2022. “A little more than five months later, in September 2022, your son was promoted as Group A Union Counsel for the Supreme Court,” Kejriwal said while detailing the contributions of Delhi Justice HC Sharma and her children.
“Then, in September 2025, your daughter Mrs. Shambhavi Sharma was promoted as Union Government Herald before this Hon’ble High Court and in the same month your son was promoted as Senior Panel Counsel also before this Supreme Court,” Arvind Kejriwal said.
“Just two months later, your daughter was also promoted as Group C Counsel of the Supreme Court,” he added.
However, Kejriwal wrote, “Taken together, these are disturbing to say the least.”
‘Loss of trust in…’
In his letter, the AAP national convener said that “the judgment rejecting the rejection has itself become another and independent reason for my loss of confidence in the fairness of further proceedings before this court”.
Kejriwal further asked, “How can I expect to be heard on a completely clean table” when his request for arrest was judicially interpreted as a personal and institutional insult.
“A litigant may be able to live with an adverse order. It is much more difficult to accept a judgment whose language suggests that the litigant’s plea was seen as impugning the judge’s dignity, oath and institutional status,” Kejriwal wrote.
He said: “The judgment speaks of ‘accusations thrown at me’, of the litigant seeking to prove that ‘the judge herself is tainted’ and of the need to avoid sending a signal that the Court may be ‘intimidated by a political party’.
“These are not, with respect, answers to the case I filed. They show me that my request for remand has been judicially interpreted as a personal and institutional insult. And once that happens, how can I expect to be heard on a completely clean table?” he said.
“I am prepared to bear these consequences”
In his letter to Justice Sharma, Kejriwal drew on Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of Satyagraha and said that his current incapacity is limited to this matter and that he is fully aware that it may harm his own legal interests.
“I am ready to bear these consequences. This is the burden that every conscientious act of Gandhian satyagraha must bear, and my conscience leaves me no other dignified course,” he wrote.
“I cannot make peace with my soul by participating in proceedings marked, in my respectful opinion, by such a serious appearance of conflict, as if all was well,” he said.
“It would be a betrayal of my conscience, a disservice to the dignity of the judiciary and an injustice to the people of India who still believe that the courts are the last refuge against excesses of power,” he said in the letter.
