Judge orders contempt case against Elvis

HYDERABAD: Justice B Siva Sankara Rao of the Hyderabad High Court on Monday dismissed the recusal petition filed by nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson in the cash-for-vote case and ordered the launch of contempt proceedings against the legislator.
Stephenson wanted the judge not to hear the quash petition filed by Jerusalem Mathaiah, an accused in the case.However, the judge noted that if he recuses himself from hearing a case merely because someone has asked him not to (without any valid grounds), then it constitutes a breach of oath, and accordingly, dismissed the petition.
Stephenson is the complainant in the cash-for-vote case and approached the court with the recusal petition after the court, as an interim measure, stayed the arrest of Mathaiah without hearing the Anti-Corruption Bureau and the state counsel. Further, after dismissing the recusal petition, the judge directed the registry to issue contempt proceedings against Stephenson for approaching the court on frivolous grounds.
While delivering the verdict, Justice Siva Sankara Rao quoted extensively from a plethora of judgments rendered by the Supreme Court, including the one delivered in the Subrata Roy case. In that case, the apex court directed the judges not to succumb to frivolous petitions seeking recusals, and declared that he will hear the quash petition filed by Mathaiah.
Referring to the difficulty in conducting court proceedings in a packed courtroom where even the arguing lawyers have no space to move, the judge said he would conduct the hearing of the matter only in the presence of the counsel representing the parties along with the advocate-general and the public prosecutor. Other lawyers or visitors will not be allowed to view the hearing.