On Friday (August 29, 2025), the Supreme Court dismissed the plea of a presiding officer of the Credit Recovery Tribunal (DRT) in Chandigarh in which he challenged the order to extend his suspension period.
A bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta passed the order while hearing the petition of the petitioner against the July order of the Delhi High Court. The petitioner is a retired judicial officer.
A bench of the High Court dismissed his petition against the order of a single judge, in which his petition was rejected against the second order to extend the period of his suspension from the post of DRT-2-two-based presiding officer in Chandigarh. The petitioner’s counsel said that the DRT has the highest rate of disposal of cases by this officer.
The Supreme Court dismissed his petition, saying, “If you do not allow lawyers to argue, you can decide all matters every day.” In the record, the petitioner was appointed as the presiding officer of DRT-2, Chandigarh on 20 February 2022, but received several complaints against him from the DRT Bar Association.
Later, complaints were sent to the head of the Appellate Tribunal (DRAT), Delhi for consideration. When the complaints were pending, the members of the DRT Bar Association refused to appear before the presiding officer as a protest.
It was also alleged that instead of postponing, several cases were rejected by unilateral action by the officer. Later, the DRT Bar Association filed a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the orders passed by the officer. In October 2022, the High Court condemned the lawyers to go on strike, stopping the presiding officer from passing any adverse order.
The officer then challenged the order of the High Court in the Supreme Court, which revised the order in December 2022 and allowed them to take decisions on the basis of further hearing and virtue-defect of the cases coming before him.