Delhi High Court judge Swarana Kanta Sharma has responded to allegations of conflict of interest regarding her son and daughter's work as government panel lawyers. She refused to recuse herself from a case against AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, citing that accepting the reasoning would disqualify many judges across the country.
Justice Sharma noted that no nexus has been shown between her children's work and the present case, and that she is adequately trained to ignore social media chatter. She also reasoned that merely because a judge takes an oath of office, their family does not take an oath to not enter the legal profession.
The judge further said that Kejriwal cannot dictate how children or family members of a judge are to live their lives, and that the argument raises a larger question about what exactly is being insinuated. She also denied Kejriwal's other arguments linked to her attending events allegedly linked to the RSS and about Union home minister Amit Shah.
The main case will now continue to be heard by Justice Sharma.
