Judge Kapadia recuses himself from ITC case

Supreme Court (SC) judge SH Kapadia, who is slated to take over from justice KG Balakrishnan as Chief Justice of India in May, withdrew from a case involving Indian Tobacco Company (ITC) on Monday, saying he owned shares in the firm. Kapadia, however, revealed his intent after hearing the matter for about a year.

As the case came up for hearing on Monday, he told the lawyers present for various parties that he owned shares in ITC and asked them if they had any reservations on his hearing the matter.

To this, senior counsel Harish Salve, representing the party opposed to ITC, said he had complete faith in him. But another senior counsel Fali S Nariman, who was awaiting his turn to argue a different case, pointed out that it would be ethically far more correct if he quit.

Responding positively to Nariman’s suggestion, Kapadia stopped hearing the case.
The case relates to ITC’s plea seeking relief from a Madras high court order holding it responsible for importing around 1,000 tonnes of “hazardous municipal waste” from the US and directing the customs department to initiate action against it. A bench headed by Kapadia had on February 27 restrained the customs authorities from taking action against ITC since the company’s review petition was pending before the Madurai bench of the high court.