Justice N K Balakrishnan of the Kerala High Court today recused himself from hearing the bail applications relating to the Shukoor murder case and another case relating to the tapping of the mobile phone of a police officer investigating the murder of Revolutionary Marxist Party leader T P Chandrasekharan. The move comes in the backdrop of CPI-M criticism that the Judge was a close associate of Special Public Prosecutor C K Sridharan, who was recently appointed by the State government to deal with these cases.