The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Thursday directed registration of a criminal contempt case against ruling BJP MLA Sanjay Pathak for calling up a sitting judge hearing a case against him.
A division bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, comprising Chief Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva and Justice Vinay Saraf, passed the order while hearing a writ petition in the matter, rejecting Pathak’s objections.
The petition was filed by Ashutosh Dixit, a resident of Katni district, which falls in Pathak’s Assembly constituency, Vijayraghavgarh.
According to Dixit’s advocate Arvind Shrivastava, the petition stated that a case related to mines linked to Pathak’s family was listed before Justice Vishal Mishra’s court, and that Sanjay Pathak had contacted the honourable judge over the phone.
The petitioner alleged that Pathak’s act amounted to an attempt to influence judicial proceedings.
The petition also stated that Justice Mishra himself disclosed that the MLA had contacted him over the phone.
Following the incident, Justice Mishra recused himself from hearing the case to maintain impartiality.
Justice Mishra had directed that the matter be placed before the Chief Justice at the administrative level.
Advocate Shrivastava said that the division bench took suo motu action against Pathak’s contemptuous act of contacting Justice Vishal Mishra over the phone.
Ashutosh Dixit alleged that he had filed complaints before the authorities, but no concrete action was taken. Consequently, he moved the High Court seeking action against Pathak.
Sanjay Pathak (55), a former minister and a mining baron, is the richest MLA in Madhya Pradesh, and also one of the richest MLAs in India.
He was in Congress until 2014, when he quit the party and joined the BJP.