A significant controversy surrounding judicial ethics has emerged involving a prominent legal figure. Justice (Retd) Siddharth Mridul, who previously served as a judge of the Delhi High Court and later as the Chief Justice of the Manipur High Court, is facing allegations of highly unethical conduct. Reports indicate that he actively maintained and ran a commercial liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) distribution agency for 16 years entirely during his tenure as a sitting judge.

The situation unfolded publicly after Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) officially suspended the dealership of his company, named ‘Kitchen Flame’, on July 6. This direct action by the public sector unit was taken after the former judge completely failed to respond to multiple official notices served to him. The corporate inquiry and subsequent suspension stemmed from a formal public grievance complaint filed against him in December 2025, which explicitly exposed that he had been operating the commercial agency while holding his position as a serving judge.

In India, judges—most notably those presiding over powerful Constitutional courts—are strictly bound by a solemn oath and an unwritten code of conduct. These rigid ethical and legal guidelines strictly prohibit sitting judges from running private businesses, holding government contracts, or maintaining any pecuniary, commercial, or financial ties with private entities or public sector units while serving in office. To ensure absolute transparency and prevent any conflict of interest, judges are required to openly declare their financial shareholdings in companies. However, the former Chief Justice appears to have completely failed to do so.

The timeline of the former judge's career and his parallel business activities reveals a long-standing dual role:

• 1984: Siddharth Mridul is originally allotted a commercial LPG dealership by BPCL.
• 1986: Two years after receiving the dealership, he begins his legal practice as an advocate in the Delhi High Court.
• March 2008: He is elevated from the bar and appointed as a sitting judge of the Delhi High Court.
• October/November 2023: He is appointed to a higher constitutional role, becoming the Chief Justice of the Manipur High Court.
• November 21, 2024: He officially retires from his judicial career.

Throughout this entire 16-year span of active judgeship and his earlier legal practice, he continuously maintained ownership and ran the commercial LPG agency.

During this extensive period, the official distributorship agreement between BPCL and the former judge's company, Kitchen Flame, was formally renewed multiple times to keep the business active. The business contract was successfully renewed on August 25, 1995; August 24, 2005; August 23, 2010; and August 25, 2015. Remarkably, even after his retirement from the judiciary, the contract was renewed on May 7, 2025, and most recently on September 29, 2025, extending the contract's validity for another five years up until August 24, 2030. The final signed agreement features his personal photograph printed on the official stamp paper alongside his direct signature for 'Kitchen Flame'.

Because these facts were hidden, BPCL issued a series of sharp legal warnings to the former jurist. The corporation served these official notices on January 30, February 26, and May 29. The oil company stated that the deliberate concealment of his full-time judicial employment directly violated multiple core clauses of their business contract.

“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 official BPCL notice stated.

The corporation further noted the legal severity of the situation in its documentation, adding:

“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 entire matter initially caught the public's eye a few months prior due to an entirely separate legal dispute filed within the judiciary. Monika Yadav—the widow of Deepak Yadav, who had been actively managing the daily operations of the LPG distributorship for Justice Mridul’s ‘Kitchen Flame’—filed a petition in the Delhi High Court. Her lawsuit sought a direct legal order to force BPCL to formally decide on her pending application, which requested that the proprietorship of the lucrative gas agency be reconstituted entirely in her own name.

This deep breach of judicial ethics comes at a highly sensitive time for the Indian judiciary. The institution is currently bracing for the rare likelihood of Parliament initiating formal removal proceedings against another official, Justice Yashwant Varma, formerly of the Delhi High Court, following the shocking discovery of bags filled with currency notes inside his official government bungalow.