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SC slams Bombay HC for disregarding norms

The Supreme Court has come down heavily on a division bench of the Bombay high court for setting aside an order of a five-judge bench of the same high court which disrobed a judicial magistrate for his alleged role in the wrongful arrest of an innocent litigant, who was also handcuffed and paraded in public.

''At any rate, the division bench has clearly exceeded its jurisdictional frontiers by interfering with such an order passed by the high court on the administrative side,'' observed a three-judge bench headed by Justice K T Thomas, while allowing an appeal by the high court through its registrar and setting aside the impugned judgement.

The bench which included Justice A P Misra and Justice S S M Quadri said in its 17-page judgement, delivered on October 28, that when such a constitutional function was exercised by the administrative side of the high court, any judicial review thereon should have been made not only with great care and circumspection, but should have been strictly confined to the parameters set by the apex court in earlier decisions on the question.

''In the present case, as per the judgement under appeal the division bench of the high court appears to have snipped off the decision of the disciplinary committee of the high court as if the bench had appeal powers over the decision of the five judges on the administrative side,'' the bench remarked.

Shashikant S Patil, the first respondent, was a joint civil judge (junior division) of the Maharashtra judicial service. While functioning as a judicial magistrate first class at Ahmednagar, he had to deal with a criminal case instituted on a police report in which the complainant was one Ranchhoddas Govinddas Gandhi.

The first respondent magistrate pronounced the judgement in the case acquitting the accused on November 7, 1985, but the complainant sent a petition to the district and sessions judge on January 4, 1986, alleging that he was wrongfully arrested by the police on October 15, 1985 as per a warrant issued by the magistrate and that he was handcuffed and paraded through the streets of his locality and that he was kept in the lock-up during the night and produced before the magistrate the next day.

It was further alleged that the first respondent magistrate, when the complainant was produced in the open court, retired to his chambers and ordered his release. It was also alleged that the arrest was manipulated at the behest of the accused in the criminal case through an illegal warrant of arrest surreptitiously stage managed.

After holding a preliminary enquiry, the high court framed charges against the first respondent and appointed a joint district judge as the inquiry officer to go into the charges.

The inquiry officer submitted a report on March 1,1994 exonerating the first respondent of the charges.

But the disciplinary committee of the high court (consisting of five judges) after a scrutiny of the report of the inquiry officers, was not disposed to approve the same. The committee differed from the findings and proposed to proceed into the matter. A notice was issued to the first respondent calling upon him to show cause as to why the findings of the inquiry officer on the crucial points not be repudiated and a major penalty of dismissal from service not be imposed on him.

After the first respondent submitted his representation to the notice, the disciplinary committee rejected the same as it arrived at the conclusion that the charges framed against him stood proved.

UNI

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