India, May 29 -- The Delhi high court has underlined the importance of guarding the reputation of judicial officers and said judges have the right to respond to the allegations of bias against them while dealing with a case. A bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma on Tuesday said that denying such opportunity would lead to a culture of unchecked and unverified accusations against any judge.

"Judges, by virtue of their duties, are tasked with upholding the principles of fairness and impartiality while adjudicating cases before them and authoring judgments. However, when the conduct of a judge itself comes into question, the principle of audi alteram partem [let the other side be heard as well] must be equally applied in such cases to the ...