It is noteworthy that the Supreme Court has upheld the firing of a Civil Judge who had a practice of reading the operative part or decision without first reading the complete text and then blaming his stenographer.
The Karnataka High Court ruling quashing the administrative decision of the entire court to dismiss the aforementioned judge was overturned by the Division Bench of Justice V Ramasubramanian and Justice Pankaj Mithal, who noted that the defense put out is “unacceptable.”
Details of the case:
Case Title: The Registrar General v. High Court of Karnataka & Anr.
Bench: Justices V. Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal
Case No.: SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CIVIL) NOS. 25714-17 OF 2019
Counsel for the appellant: Mr. Basava Prabhu S. Patil
Counsel for the respondent: Ms. Anitha Shenoy
Short Summary of the Case
In 1995, the respondent was appointed to the position of Junior Division Civil Judge. The respondent was suspended by an order dated January 25, 2005 due to several claims of serious misconduct, and disciplinary action was thereafter taken.
All four charge memos were the subject of separate investigations, and according to the investigation findings, some charges were substantiated while others were not. Second show-cause notices were issued as a result, and on October 4th, 2008, the Full Court of the High Court of Karnataka decided to punish the respondent by dismissing him from his position.
The respondent filed a set of three writ petitions challenging the enquiry officer’s conclusions, and a separate writ petition against the judgment of removal from service. A learned Judge dismissed each of these writ petitions in a single ruling dated 30.11.2011.
Angered by the same, the responder appealed within the court. The Division Bench of the High Court granted those appeals in a peculiar order that not only set aside the punishment order and the investigation officer’s conclusions but also mandated that the respondent be exempt from any further inquiries. The Registrar General of the High Court has filed these civil appeals in opposition to a similar common order that was issued in a batch of four intra-court appeals.
The court noted that while some of the accusations center on judicial pronouncements and decision-making procedures, those that center on the respondent’s egregious carelessness and callousness in failing to prepare or dictate judgments are unacceptable and unbecoming of a judicial officer. A 25.01.2005 order suspending the respondent from the position of Civil Judge (Junior Division) was followed by disciplinary actions. On October 4, 2008, the High Court of Karnataka decided to enforce the Governor of Karnataka’s order to terminate the respondent’s employment. The High Court granted the respondent’s intra-court appeals, overturning the punishment judgment and the investigation officer’s conclusions in an odd decision. As part of the allegations pertained to the legal orders issued by the respondent, the Supreme Court decided whether or not to interfere with the order made by the High Court.
The bench stated that a judge cannot deliver the judgment’s conclusion in open court without first having the complete text written or dictated. The High Court did not examine whether the penalty order in this case was correct; instead, it made a determination as though the justices were intimately familiar with the difficulties that the lower-level judicial officers encountered. The High Court’s conclusion that the respondent’s acts of omission and commission do not amount to grave misconduct is puzzling and appears to be a covert attack on the High Court’s Full Court. The court noted that it was not the respondent’s case that the High Court decided to impose the penalty of dismissal from service before providing the respondent with copies of the enquiry reports. The High Court has developed new jurisprudence since the second show cause notifications were against the fundamentals of natural justice.
Name: Sarah Garima Tigga Semester VI, College: symbiosis law school (pune)
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