Madhya Pradesh High Court Allows Former ADJ’s Plea Against Dismissal
The Madhya Pradesh High Court has allowed a Petition challenging the punishment of dismissal imposed upon a former ADJ, while remarking that the said punishment is “shockingly disproportionate.”
The Court replaced the punishment of dismissal imposed on the Additional District and Sessions Judge (Petitioner) of the M.P. Higher Judicial Services with the punishment of withholding two increments without cumulative effect. The Petitioner was accused of granting bail to a murder accused in a pending Sessions Trial, which was alleged to be “against judicial discipline and propriety” and that he “failed to maintain absolute integrity and devotion to duty expected of a judicial officer.”
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Vivek Jain remarked, “However, it is not such case which warrants dismissal of the judicial officer from service that too when judicial officer had put in 28 years of service and was due to retire within next two to three years or so, and had an otherwise unblemished career. He had been promoted along with his batch mates and no doubt on his integrity and honesty were cast at any point of time ever and even in the enquiry report of the present case no such doubts have been cast and on the contrary it has been held that no ingredients of extraneous consideration or of any corrupt practice could be established during the course of enquiry against the petitioner. Therefore, the punishment of dismissal in the present case shocks the conscience of this court because the punishment is shockingly disproportionate.”
Senior Advocate Prahlad Choudhary appeared for the Petitioner, while Senior Advocate Anoop Nair represented the Respondents.
Brief Facts
The Petitioner submitted that the Inquiry Officer in his enquiry report did not find that there had been any corruption or extraneous consideration on the part of the Petitioner in allowing the bail application. Rather, the Inquiry Officer in the enquiry report categorically held that no corrupt conduct nor any extraneous consideration or mal-intention has been proved in the Departmental Enquiry in the matter of grant of bail to the accused person, yet the act of the Petitioner allegedly amounted to judicial indiscipline.
Court’s Reasoning
The High Court noted, “So far as the allegation of the petitioner acting with corrupt or oblique motive or for some extraneous consideration is concerned, the said allegations were not sustained in the enquiry itself and Enquiry Officer has categorically held the no corrupt/ oblique motive or extraneous consideration could be established during the course of the enquiry.”
The bench remarked that “in the present case, the application for cancellation of bail was subsequently rejected by the petitioner. Therefore, this case is a case of error of judgement, and very thinly crossing the line of not maintaining judicial discipline, though the same seems to be under a mistaken belief that the petitioner was still having liberty to consider the repeat bail application in terms of liberty granted while deciding the second bail application by the High Court, which was never expressly withdrawn, but was impliedly withdrawn, by allowing subsequent bail applications filed before it to be rejected/withdrawn as not pressed.”
“In the present case though it is a case of error of judgment and erroneous order passed by the trial judge, but it is also a case very thinly crossing the line of judicial indiscipline which appears to be under a mistaken belief/impression, as noted by us above. Even no extraneous or ulterior motive was proved in the enquiry,” the Court held.
Consequently, the Court ordered that “It is not in dispute that the petitioner is now more than 65 years of age and would have superannuated from service in the year 2018, therefore, it is a fit case to interfere in the quantum of punishment by the Court itself. As the petitioner has already passed the age of superannuation, in our opinion it would not be proper to remand the matter to the Full Court or to the Administrative Committee for reconsideration on the quantum of punishment. In our considered opinion, the interest of justice would be met if the punishment of dismissal is replaced with punishment of withholding two increments without cumulative effect.”
Accordingly, the High Court allowed the Petition.
Cause Title: Roop Singh Alawa v. State Of Madhya Pradesh & Anr. (WRIT PETITION NO. 18931 OF 2017)
Appearance:
Petitioner: Senior Advocate Prahlad Choudhary; Advocate Aditya Narayan Sharma
Respondents: Senior Advocate Anoop Nair; Government Advocate SS Chouhan; Advocate Mihir Linawat
