The criminal contempt proceedings against the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon) Bangalore in the Karnataka high court reached the conclusive stage on Monday.
In fact, the judge heading a division bench of the court that heard the case delivered his verdict, while the other judge reserved his orders for Thursday.

Justice K Sreedhar Rao discharged Iskcon, Bangalore, in the criminal contempt proceedings case, while justice Subash B Adi reserved his orders.

On September 15, 2009, the Karnataka high court had directed initiation of suo motu contempt proceedings against Madhu Pandit Das, president of Iskcon Bangalore; Jai Chaitanya Das, secretary of Iskcon Bangalore; and counsels for the organisation, SKV Chalapathi, AH Ron, Ramesh Babu and Maruthi Prasad, for resorting to bench-hunting tactics.

“Right from the beginning, even before the case came up for hearing in the high court, concerted efforts were made (by the Iskcon Bangalore, representatives) to avoid the bench headed by justice KL Manjunath, by using bench-hunting tactics and forum shopping. Despite several opportunities afforded, wiser counsel didn’t prevail upon them. We are constrained to take this action,” observed the order issued by a division bench of justice KL Manjunath and justice BV Nagarathna.

The bench had dismissed the recuse application filed by Iskcon Bangalore that sought shifting of justice Manjunath from the bench. The chief justice later assigned the main matter to a special bench.