The rule against bias

1. Kinds of bias

• Pecuniary bias. Any financial interest in the outcome, however small, disqualifies. In Dimes v. Proprietors of Grand Junction Canal (House of Lords, 1852) the Lord Chancellor, who held shares in the canal company, had affirmed decrees in its favour. The decrees were set aside, though no one suggested he was actually influenced.
• Personal bias. A relationship with a party (friend, relative, business associate) or hostility towards one. The question is whether there is a real likelihood of bias, not whether the judge was in fact biased.
• Official or departmental bias. The authority deciding is part of the department that initiated the proceedings or has an official interest in the result.
• Subject-matter bias or bias as to policy. The decision-maker is committed in advance to a particular result. A general policy view does not disqualify; a closed mind on the particular case does.
• Bias by prior involvement. The person acted as witness, counsel or investigator in the same matter, and then sits to decide it.

2. The test in India

In Manak Lal v. Dr. Prem Chand, 1957 INSC 11, AIR 1957 SC 425, an advocate faced a complaint of professional misconduct before a Bar Council tribunal whose chairman had earlier appeared as counsel for the complainant in a related matter. The Court held that this created a reasonable likelihood of bias and that the tribunal was not properly constituted; the test is not whether bias was actually present, but whether there was a real likelihood of it in the mind of a reasonable litigant. Manak Lal lost all the same: he knew of the chairman's involvement and did not object, so he had waived the objection.

In Ranjit Thakur v. Union of India, 1987 INSC 285, (1987) 4 SCC 611, a soldier was tried by a summary court martial presided over by the commanding officer against whom he had made a complaint, and who had already punished him for it. The sentence was quashed. The Court stated the test as whether there is a real likelihood of bias, judged from the point of view of a reasonable person in the position of the party: the proper approach is to ask whether a litigant could reasonably apprehend that bias attributable to a member of the tribunal might have operated against him. The decision-maker's own belief that he was impartial is not the point.

A.K. Kraipak v. Union of India, 1969 INSC 129, (1969) 2 SCC 262, applied the rule to an administrative selection: a candidate who sat on the selection board and assessed his rivals vitiated the whole selection, even though he withdrew when his own name came up.

3. Departmental bias: the Gullapalli cases

In Gullapalli Nageswara Rao v. Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, 1958 INSC 94, AIR 1959 SC 308, a scheme to nationalise bus routes was prepared by the State Transport Undertaking, a department headed by the Secretary of the Transport Department. Objections from private operators were heard by the same Secretary, and the scheme was approved on his note. The Court quashed the approval: the officer who was in substance one of the parties had heard the objections. In the second case, Gullapalli Nageswara Rao v. State of Andhra Pradesh, 1959 INSC 103, AIR 1959 SC 1376, after the Act was amended, the objections were heard by the Chief Minister. The challenge on the ground of bias failed: the Chief Minister was not part of the department that prepared the scheme and had no personal interest, and the mere fact that he was the head of the Government did not make him a party.

4. Exceptions

• Waiver. A party who knows of the disqualification and takes part without objecting cannot raise it later (Manak Lal).
• Necessity. If the only authority competent to decide is the one alleged to be biased, and no substitute exists, it must decide, because otherwise the matter could not be decided at all. In J. Mohapatra & Co. v. State of Orissa, 1984 INSC 136, (1984) 4 SCC 103, members of a committee choosing textbooks were themselves authors of books under consideration. The Court held that they should not have taken part, and noted that the doctrine of necessity did not save them because substitutes could have been found. In Election Commission of India v. Dr. Subramanian Swamy, 1996 INSC 569, (1996) 4 SCC 104, where the Chief Election Commissioner was said to be biased against a person whose disqualification was referred to the Commission, the Court held that, the Commission being multi-member, the CEC should leave the decision to the other two Commissioners, and should take part only if they differed, by necessity.
• Statutory authority. A statute may expressly provide that a particular official decides even where he has an official interest, and the courts will give effect to it, subject to the Constitution.

5. Effect

A decision tainted by bias is invalid and will be quashed by certiorari. The court does not ask whether the result would have been the same without the biased member; the presence of one biased member vitiates the decision of the whole body (Kraipak).

6. Problem

In contempt proceedings, the judge who heard and decided the case punished a witness for scandalous remarks that brought the court into disrepute. The witness challenges the order. Will he succeed? (January 2026)

Issue. Whether a judge against whose court the contempt was committed may himself try and punish it, or whether that offends the rule that no one may be judge in his own cause.

Law. The rule against bias admits exceptions for necessity and where the law itself confers the power. Contempt committed in the face of the court is a long-recognised case: the court must be able to protect its proceedings at once. Section 14(1) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 allows the Supreme Court or a High Court, where contempt is committed in its presence or hearing, to detain the person, inform him in writing of the charge, give him an opportunity to make his defence, and determine the matter. Section 14(2) allows the person to apply to have the charge tried by another judge, and the court must place the matter before the Chief Justice if it thinks that practicable and in the interests of justice. In Leila David v. State of Maharashtra, 2009 INSC 1190, a three-judge Bench held that where contempt is committed in the face of the Supreme Court, the Court may deal with it summarily under Article 129.

Application. The scandalous remarks were made in the course of the proceedings before the judge, so this is contempt in the face of the court. The judge's power to deal with it himself is conferred by law and justified by necessity; he has no personal interest in the sense of the bias rule, only the official interest of preserving the court's authority. The witness can complain only if the procedure was unfair: if he was not told the charge in writing or given a chance to answer it, or if he asked for trial by another judge and the request was not considered under section 14(2).

Conclusion. The witness will not succeed merely because the same judge punished him. He may succeed if the minimum procedure of section 14 was denied. If the judge was of a subordinate court, the proper course is a reference to the High Court, which has the power to punish contempt of courts subordinate to it.

How this is examined

As a 10-mark essay on the rule against bias, or as part of an essay on the principles of natural justice (June 2025). Give the maxim, the kinds with an example each, Manak Lal, Gullapalli I and II, Kraipak, Ranjit Thakur for the test, and the exceptions. The contempt problem above appeared in January 2026; another favourite is a selection committee on which a relative of a candidate sits, which is answered from Kraipak.