Jaipur: The Rajasthan high court has rapped the ICICI group’s insurance arm, ICICI Lombard, for “abuse and misuse of the process of law” after the company filed a petition impleading several judges of district courts across Rajasthan.In an order passed October 6, 2018, Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma fined ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Rs 10 lakh after the company offered to withdraw its petition.The company had filed a petition in the high court impleading several employees’ compensation commissioners, questioning their legal qualifications and asking the court to restrain the officers from discharging their duties.When confronted with facts by the government counsel during the proceedings, the counsel for ICICI Lombard sought permission to withdraw the petition.“On being confronted with the submissions, the counsel for the petitioner prays to withdraw the writ petition, but this court is biased with such practice adopted by the company, and influential Employees Compensation Commissioners posted at various district (s),” Justice Sharma noted in the order, a copy of which is with The Wire.However, Justice Sharma did not allow for a withdrawal, and dismissed the petition while slapping a fine.“Such practice amounts to misuse and abuse of process of law for which the petitioner cannot be spared by allowing them to withdraw the petition after arguing the same. The action of the petitioner company is deprecated and in view of aforesaid facts which have come on record, I deem it appropriate to dismiss the writ petition with cost of Rs.10.0 lacs on the company to be deposited with the Legal Service Authority within a period of one month,” he ordered.Justice Sharma also observed that the petition sought to “browbeat” and “wrongly influence” employees and compensation commissioners posted at various districts, as quoted by law portal Bar and Bench.“We did not like the fact that they cast doubt on the competence and qualifications of our officers. As proved by the court, it was a mistake on their part to have filed the petition,” Dharam Pal, one of the employees’ compensation officers named in ICICI’s petition, told The Wire.Some of the officers impleaded by the company included legal officials from the district judge cadre, one of who had recently been elevated to be a judge of the high court.“They were clearly trying to mislead the honourable court but the court saw through it. They tried this last year too with a similar petition but withdrew it later. Their attempt was to influence pending compensation cases with the compensation commissioners,” government counsel Padam Singh Gurjar said.ICICI Lombard’s operations in Rajasthan have been under the scanner of law enforcement agencies, as reported by The Wire last year. The state’s special operations group is currently probing the company for miss-selling insurance products to poor, mostly illiterate consumers.Recently, there were rumours about the agency filing a closure report in the case. However, SOG chief Alok Tripathi denied any such development, saying the investigations against the firm were still on.