A sitting Supreme Court judge has written to Chief Justice of India Surya Kant seeking the immediate removal of Rajasthan High Court's acting Chief Justice, alleging misuse of office.
Justice Sandeep Mehta has asked the CJI to urgently appoint a chief justice from another state to head the Rajasthan High Court. He alleged that acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma has been manipulating case listings to benefit wealthy litigants, NDTV reported.
Mehta has submitted several pieces of evidence along with his letters to the CJI.
According to Bar and Bench, in letters dated August 2, 10 and 17, Mehta accused Sharma of misusing his administrative powers ahead of his retirement next month.
He alleged that fellow judges had approached him with concerns about Sharma's conduct, claiming Sharma frequently threatened colleagues with transfers and cited his proximity to the CJI.
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Mehta wrote that since becoming acting Chief Justice, Sharma appeared to have obtained a "licence to hit sixes" — an apparent reference to recent remarks by a bench of the CJI and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, which flagged a tendency among judges nearing retirement to pass contentious orders for external reasons.
As evidence, Mehta cited two division bench orders concerning a valuable land dispute in Udaipur, which he said were listed before a Jaipur bench.
His August 17 letter also referenced allegations by sitting Rajasthan High Court judge Uma Shankar Vyas, who claimed Sharma acted vindictively by transferring the wife of his senior district judiciary officer.
Mehta further alleged that Sharma deliberately delayed the inauguration of a new court building in Jodhpur, causing institutional loss.
Separately, advocate Pooja Tripathi has complained to Justice Vikram Nath, alleging that Sharma misused his position to appoint close associates to the Permanent Lok Adalat in Jaipur and Ajmer, and pushed the names of four women advocates for High Court judgeship despite them not being in active practice. Each of the four, she said, is linked to a senior advocate or a retired judge close to Sharma.
Justice Sanjeev Sharma was appointed to the Rajasthan High Court in November 2016, before being transferred to Patna in 2022. After his request to return was rejected by the collegium in 2023, he was sent to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. A fresh collegium recommendation in May 2025 brought him back to Rajasthan as acting Chief Justice, a post he has held for over 10 months, per Mehta's letter.
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