Tanheer Singh Bariana

humanist

[SANJAY HEGDE @sanjayuvacha]

I am proud to call Dinesh Dwivedi, Senior Advocate a friend.

[SANJAY HEGDE @sanjayuvacha]

It took a lawyer's movement to unseat a military dictator across the border. If this is how, senior advocates designated by the Supreme Court are treated by this government, it becomes incumbent upon all lawyers to unite against the police. Jai Hind.

[🇮🇳 Prateek Chadha 🇮🇳 @PrateekKChadha]

Shadan Farasat is a first rate man and an excellent lawyer with a thriving practice. He is one of the youngest senior counsel ever designated by the SC. He is a member of the SCBA as well. He is a man who fights for what he believes is right and refuses to kowtow to bullies. I am proud to call him a friend and hope that his courage and fortitude inspire many others at the bar to stop sitting on the fence.
Lawyers are supposed to stand for the rights of the oppressed. When they do that- good things like Indian Independence result. When they don’t they cease to be lawyers.
@NLSIUofficial @gautambhatia88 @abhinavsekhri10 @vrindagrover

[Sreenivasan Jain @SreenivasanJain]

Not just journalists. Lawyers too.

Senior Supreme Court Advocate Shadan Farasat is detained by the police, his shirt torn.

[Sushant Singh @SushantSin]

Senior advocate Shadan Farasat, one of the youngest to be given senior advocate status in India, a Harvard alum who has been at the forefront of fighting important constitutional cases is being manhandled by Delhi Police. Where the F is CJI and his bench?

[Man Aman Singh Chhina @manaman_chhina]

Congress high command decides to remove Raja Warring as Punjab chief https://t.co/1kXbrotpbb via @IndianExpress

[Tanheer Singh Bariana @TanheerB]

Perks of being at lucrative and plump postings

[Man Aman Singh Chhina @manaman_chhina]

Punjab Police Inspectors and Sub Inspectors travel in style when they apprehend fugitives abroad.
Especially when they carry Longchamp travel handbags worth at least Rs 50,000.

[Man Aman Singh Chhina @manaman_chhina]

Punjab Police Inspectors and Sub Inspectors travel in style when they apprehend fugitives abroad.
Especially when they carry Longchamp travel handbags worth at least Rs 50,000.

[Tanheer Singh Bariana @TanheerB]

@KapilSibal All of above

[Tanheer Singh Bariana @TanheerB]

@ArvindKejriwal Lala ji, just a reminder: this is the very same judge who struck down the AAP government's LPA against the Single Judge's order regarding employee DA.

[Saurav Das @SauravDassss]

#ImportantNews: The controversy over the alleged Delhi liquor-scam case before Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma is no longer confined to courtroom conduct alone. Now more troubling questions of proximity, patronage, conflict-of-interest, and the appearance of bias have come to light.

Several of the 23 dischargees in the case had formally sought Justice Sharma’s recusal from hearing the CBI’s challenge to their discharge. Even then, the judge has so far resisted calls to step aside, even as former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal himself appears in person to argue the recusal application. Arguments are now scheduled for Monday, 13 April 2026.

In my last Case In Point column for @frontline_india, I had already revealed, through an analysis of all the 165 criminal revision petitions of the same category as Kejriwal’s case, that Justice Sharma clearly departed from her usual pattern of handling such matters and had taken an unusually strange interest in this case. That, along with many other details that if read in singularity can be met with a shrug, but when read together, reveals a troubling pattern and credible fears of apprehension of bias in the liquor case. These by itself had raised serious questions. You may read my piece here: https://t.co/GtqFKFhRYY

What has surfaced now makes those questions HARDER to dismiss.

Justice Sharma’s son and daughter—Ishaan Sharma and Shambhavi Sharma—have both been empanelled by the Union government before the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court.

According to the empanelment details, both siblings were appointed on the very same days: 11 September 2025 for the Delhi High Court panels and 21 November 2025 for the Supreme Court panels.

1. Ishaan Sharma holds panels before both courts, including the highest Group A panel before the Supreme Court and Senior Panel Counsel status before the Delhi High Court.

2. Shambhavi Sharma, with mere four years of enrolment as advocate, too holds panels before both courts: Group C before the Supreme Court and Government Pleader before the Delhi High Court.

3. Ishaan Sharma also held a panel in the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), under the Union Housing Ministry, till at least 2024 (Check: https://t.co/4DsDonRCyE).

4. He also held a panel in the Delhi State Legal Services Authority since 2021 until at least the end of 2024 (Check: https://t.co/KnfZFVJhCs).

Panel counselship is among the most coveted forms of government legal patronage in the system. Ask any advocate and they will tell you how through these positions, the government allocates litigation, visibility, professional standing, and income. But the more important and troubling part is that they are positions held at the pleasure of the very government whose top law officers are now appearing before Justice Sharma in one of the most politically explosive cases in the country. And that is where the conflict sharpens.

Of course, one need not prove an explicit bargain but justice must also be SEEN to be done, especially when it is a case of public interest. The test for seeking recusal of a judge is whether there exists a reasonable apprehension of bias and whether public confidence in the fairness of the process has been impaired. Like I had explained in my column, Indian law on recusal has long recognised that what matters is not just actual bias, but whether a litigant could REASONABLY FEEL that justice may NOT appear to be done. Here, several of the 23 dischargees feel justice may not be done impartially.

And now this issue of one advocate, who happens to be the son of a judge, accumulating large number of panels within a relatively short post-enrolment period as an advocate. Ask any lawyer and they will tell you how many more accomplished, brilliant persons, with many more years as an advocate have failed to secure a panel through the formal process. The concerns are many.

In this case, the question is whether a judge can continue to hear a politically sensitive challenge brought by the CBI, while her kin hold multiple Union government panels and receive work from the same legal establishment whose top officers allocate cases to them and are now appearing before her?

Note this: as per one RTI reply I received, Ishaan Sharma was allocated 2,487 cases in 2023, 1,784 cases in 2024, and 1,633 cases in 2025. In both 2024 and 2025, he was allocated more case files than even Zoheb Hossain, the top, most publicly visible Enforcement Directorate lawyer—by 91 in 2024 and by 582 in 2025. This of course suggests the sustained and substantial allocation of state work before the son. The allocation is done by the topmost in the legal system.

Also, this is not the first time that such questions of potential conflict of interest have arisen. In September 2024, I had highlighted the case of Padmesh Mishra, whose appointments across multiple union government and Rajasthan government positions drew scrutiny after his father, Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, was elevated to the Supreme Court. Check: https://t.co/TVr35PmPx3

The unease then was the same as it is now: when the children of sitting judges begin to accumulate government panels and positions in unusual concentration, something a regular lawyer, perhaps much more brilliant and of more history of practice, can only dream of, particularly after or around the parent’s rise within the judiciary, the issue is of institutional credibility.

And no one really needs to state that that credibility is already under strain. Recently, Justice Manmohan of the Supreme Court himself publicly flagged corruption in the appointment of panel counsels by the Union government, questioning whether such appointments are really being made on merit at all. In a system where even a sitting Supreme Court judge is warning that panel-counsel appointments may be infected by extraneous considerations, the appearance of conflict in the present case becomes still harder to shrug away. Check: https://t.co/RGSSDK7ekf

Seen in that light, the present controversy is again not whether Justice Sharma is actually biased. It is about whether the institution can credibly insist that there is nothing to see here. The CBI has just filed an affidavit supporting Justice Sharma. A judge who I have documented, as per her own orders, to show unusual interest in a politically sensitive matter now finds herself in a position where her own kind hold/held as many as SIX government panels between them, while their bosses continue to appear before her. Even if one were to assume the absence of any actual impropriety, does this arrangement augur well for the appearance of judicial independence, especially in this case? The question is whether this not enough evidence of apprehension of bias that should suffice for a recusal.

That is the question the High Court ought to have confronted with seriousness. Instead, by resisting recusal in these circumstances, the judge is unfortunately deepening this very suspicion that it should have avoided at all costs, or at least for the sake of institution.

[Man Aman Singh Chhina @manaman_chhina]

Cc @westerncomd_IA @adgpi
You now have a Para SF Army Cdr.
At least stand by these two Para SF jawans whose family is being victimised by local politicians in power and Gurdaspur Police.

[Rattan Dhillon @ShivrattanDhil1]

From Wagon R to private jets looks like Mr. Mann and Kejriwal are obsessed with flying in luxury. What a shame.

Traveling with the aam aadmi now feels beneath them, so they prefer personal flights.

At this pace, don’t be surprised if they soon own a private jet funded by the people of Punjab!
@ArvindKejriwal @BhagwantMann

[Sukhpal Singh Khaira @SukhpalKhaira]

Punjabi’s beware of the #BikauMedia sponsored by @ArvindKejriwal @BhagwantMann govt to create a false narrative in favour of @AamAadmiParty and block all anti government information !

And all this will be done at your cost !

@INCIndia @INCPunjab

[Rattandeep Singh Dhaliwal @Rattan1990]

ਮਾਘੀ ਮੇਲੇ ਤੇ ਹੋਏ ਰਾਜ ਪੱਧਰੀ ਸਮਾਗਮ ਦੇ ਖਰਚੇ ਦੇ ਚੱਕ ਤੇ ਫੱਟੇ RTI ਚ ਹੋਇਆ ਖੁਲਾਸਾ

[Man Aman Singh Chhina @manaman_chhina]

From time to time I see a Brigadier ride through the city on a Royal Enfield.
Good josh.

[beside_the_bar @vakeelbehnji]

Uttarakhand High Court, Matter called out. It was a matrimonial Matter. The matter was instructed to be sent for mediation.
Lady brought rose for husband and sought the permission of the Court to give it to him and told the court I still love him.
Madnessssss💕❤️😂

[Sukhbir Singh Badal @officeofssbadal]

Pleased to appoint S. Sukhdeep Singh Sukar as Halka Incharge for Nawanshahr Assembly Constituency.
His hard work and dedication as District President of Nawanshahr has significantly strengthened the party at the grassroots level.
I am confident he will put in his best efforts in his new role as well. Wish him all success!

[Akashdeep Thind @thind_akashdeep]

Indian Army Naib Subedar Pragat Singh was martyred while on duty in Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir. The 31-year-old soldier, a resident of Ramdass in Amritsar, was serving with 19 Rashtriya Rifles and had been inducted into the Army on December 23, 2015.
He is survived by his elderly parents, wife, and two children. The mortal remains of the martyr are likely to reach his native village by evening, while the last rites will be performed tomorrow.
#Punjab