It was a usual Friday for Nagpur. The city was functioning like any other day, and so were courtrooms. In one such court, a judge of the Bombay High Court arrived for the day’s hearings. The proceedings that were supposed to be a routine took a surprising turn, creating history.
Rohit Deo, senior high court judge, arrived in the courtroom and left everyone stunned as he put off hearings of all cases before him on Friday. Apologising to the lawyers and and litigants, Deo announced his resignation as a judge with immediate effect in open court.
He also sought forgiveness if he ever had hurt the lawyers and litigants during hearings. News agency PTI quoted a lawyer present in the Nagpur court as saying that Justice Deo said that he could not compromise on self-respect.
“Those who are present in the court, I apologise to each one of you. I scolded you because I want you to improve. I don’t want to hurt anyone of you because you all are like family to me and I am sorry to tell you that I have submitted my resignation. I can’t work against my self-respect. You people work hard,” Justice Deo was quoted as saying in the courtroom by the lawyer.
A report in Times of India, however, stated that Deo rejected these claims by some lawyers. The Justice was quoted as saying that he had never disclosed the reason for his resignation to anyone and neither made a statement regarding “self-respect”. “I just told them that all of them are like family to me and I never intended to hurt anyone,” he added.
Did Rohit Deo Create History?
The TOI quoted lawyers present in the courtroom as saying that this is perhaps the first time in history that an HC judge has made his resignation public in open court.
Why Did Rohit Deo Resign?
The report stated that the Nagpur lawyers attributed his move to the sudden transfer order issued by the HC registry on the recommendation of the Supreme Court collegium on Thursday in which he was given the option to move to the Allahabad HC.
The TOI report, however, stated that Deo himself only said that his resignation was due to “personal reasons”. Deo spoke to the publication at his official bungalow and said that he had “directly sent his resignation to Droupadi Murmu”.
The Justice, however, refused to reveal the reason behind his sudden move, saying only that “it was purely a personal decision” and that “he was content with it”.
“I had first emailed it to them and then sent a hard copy by post in the morning itself. A copy was also marked to Chief Justice of India Dhananjay Chandrachud and Bombay high court Chief Justice Devendra Upadhyay,” he was quoted as saying.
Rohit Deo’s Bombshell at Customary Tea
Before making his resignation public, Deo surprised his fellow judges on Friday morning when he skipped the online ceremony of Justice Anil Pansare’s appointment as permanent HC judge.
According to the TOI report, the Justice arrived when the judges were sitting for the customary tea. He dropped the bombshell when they asked him why he had missed the event. The shocked judges asked why and requested him to reconsider, but he said he had already made up his mind, the lawyers were quoted.
The report stated that during an interaction with High Court Bar Association (HCBA) members in his chambers, many advocates became emotional while pleading with him to stay on. Even the judge grew emotional while speaking to them and wept before departing.
Rohit Deo’s Achievements
• Deo is a former assistant solicitor-general of India, who had over two years of his tenure left. He was to retire on December 4, 2025. TOI report stated that Deo is the second judge in the recent past to resign, after Justice Pushpa Ganediwala who quit on February 11, 2022.
• Justice Deo was elevated as a judge to the Bombay high court in 2017. Before that, he was the Advocate General of Maharashtra in 2016.
• In 2022, Justice Deo acquitted former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba in an alleged Maoist links case, setting aside the life imprisonment awarded to him and noting that the trial proceedings were null and void in the absence of valid sanction under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). The Supreme Court later stayed the order and ordered the Nagpur bench of the High Court to hear the case afresh.
• Last week, Justice Deo stayed the operation of a Maharashtra Government Resolution (order) of January 3 through which the state was empowered to cancel punitive proceedings initiated by the revenue department related to the illegal excavation of minor minerals by contractors engaged in the construction of the Nagpur-Mumbai Samruddhi Expressway.
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