On October 9, the court conveyed to the assembled courtroom that Justice Nagu had decided to withdraw, and the case would be reassigned to another Bench by the Chief Justice of India. File
| Photo Credit: ANI
Supreme Court judge, Justice Sheel Nagu, on Friday (October 9, 2026) recused himself from hearing an appeal filed by the State of Punjab against a State High Court order for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into corruption allegations linked to Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann’s office.
Justice Nagu was the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court immediately before his appointment on the Bench of the Supreme Court.
When the case came up for hearing on October 8, Justice Dipankar Datta had orally indicated that Justice Nagu may have to recuse, but said the case file had not reached the latter judge, who would go through them and take a call.
On October 9, the court conveyed to the assembled courtroom that Justice Nagu had decided to withdraw, and the case would be reassigned to another Bench by the Chief Justice of India.
The State of Punjab, in its appeal before the apex court, has argued that the High Court’s direction for a CBI probe suffered from errors such as treating information shared under Section 66(2) of the PMLA as a direction that makes registration “inevitable”, contrary to the 2022 decision of the apex court in the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary case.
The High Court had directed the CBI to probe corruption allegations linked to Chief Minister Mann’s office. The allegations were raised by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against public servants and private individuals linked to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and include corruption in transfers and postings, policy manipulation, cash for tenders, and other serious irregularities.
Pronouncing its order on a public interest litigation case on October 5, the High Court Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra had said that, on a cumulative assessment of the material placed on record in the petition, the court was of the view that a fair and transparent investigation was required into the issue.
The petitioner in the High Court, advocate Nikhil Saraf, had argued that no action had been forthcoming despite communications from the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 to the Punjab government.
Published – October 09, 2026 12:40 pm IST
