Dehradun: Supreme Court has directed Uttarakhand high court chief justice to take appropriate steps for listing and examining petitions linked to Prateek Resorts and Builders Private Limited, after noting that the high court judge who passed several interim orders in the matter had earlier appeared as counsel for the company in a case involving the same piece of land.A bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva was hearing petitions filed by Prateek Resorts and Builders Private Limited challenging interim orders passed by Uttarakhand high court in a criminal petition. The matter had drawn scrutiny because of the possibility of conflict of interest, with Supreme Court observing that the judge’s earlier role as counsel for the petitioner raised questions about the appropriateness of his subsequent judicial consideration of related issues.The bench underlined the settled principle that “justice must not only be done but must also be seen to be done”. It also observed that the high court judge had gone into issues beyond the scope of the petitions before him and said that if wider questions required examination, the proper course would have been to refer the matter for consideration as a public interest litigation or place it before the chief justice for appropriate administrative and judicial directions.Despite flagging these concerns, Supreme Court did not interfere with the interim orders already passed by high court, including directions linked to environmental protection such as prohibition on tree-cutting. The bench said such issues, along with other legal concerns arising in the matter, should be considered comprehensively by an appropriate bench of high court.Supreme Court directed Uttarakhand high court chief justice to take necessary steps to ensure proper listing of the petitions and their assessment before the appropriate bench. The order made it clear that the matter should proceed in a manner that preserves confidence in judicial fairness while allowing questions of land use, environmental safeguards and criminal proceedings to be examined by the competent forum.
