Justice (Retd) Siddharth Mridul, who served as a judge of the Delhi High Court and the Chief Justice of the Manipur High Court, reportedly engaged in unethical conduct by running an LPG distribution agency for 16 years while serving as a judge.
The matter came to light after the Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL) suspended the dealership of his company ‘Kitchen Flame’, on 6th July, after the former judge failed to respond to the notices served by the BPCL. The BPCL’s action arose from a public grievance complaint filed against him, exposing that he had been running the agency while serving as a judge.
Judges in India, especially those serving in Constitutional courts, are bound by strict codes of conduct, which do not allow them to run businesses, hold government contracts, or have commercial/financial ties with private companies or public sector units while serving in office. The judges are required to declare their shareholdings in companies to avoid a conflict of interest. However, the former judge seems to have failed to do so.
As per reports, Justice (Retd) Mridul was allotted an LPG dealership by the BPCL in 1984. Two years later, in 1986, he started practising as an advocate in the Delhi High Court. In 2008, he was appointed as a judge in the same court. Subsequently, in November 2023, he became the Chief Justice of the Manipur High Court. He retired in November 2024. Throughout the period of practice and judgeship, he continued to run the LPG agency.
During this period, the Kitchen Flame’s distributorship agreement with the BPCL was renewed multiple times. The agreement was renewed on August 25, 1995, August 24, 2005, August 23, 2010, August 25, 2015, May 7, 2025, and most recently on September 29, 2025, for a period of five years. The agreement reportedly carries his photograph and signature.
“It prima facie appears that material facts regarding your full-time engagement in constitutional/judicial office during the subsistence of earlier distributorship agreements, and the manner in which the distributorship was being operated in your absence, were not disclosed to the corporation at any point in time,” the BPCL notice stated. The BPCL served notices to the former judge on 30th January, 26th February and 29th May. The company said that the concealment by the former judge regarding his judicial employment violated several clauses of the agreement.
“It prima facie appears that taking up and/or continuing judicial employment during the subsistence of the distributorship, without even prior written permission of BPCL, is violative of various clauses of the agreement,” the BPCL said.
The matter came into public view a couple of months ago, when Monika Yadav, widow of Deepak Yadav, who was managing the LPG distributorship for Justice Mridul’s ‘Kitchen Flame’, moved the Delhi High Court seeking a directive to BPCL to decide her application seeking reconstitution of proprietorship of the agency in her favour.
