The Shameless Erring Judge
The reports by Times of India this morning about the ugly conduct of the Administrative Judge of Madhya Pradesh High Court at Gwallior Bench brought shame to the entire legal fraternity. I hang my head with shame over this conduct of a sitting Judge of the High, that too against an officer of Madhya Pradesh Higher Judicial Service posted at Gwallior. She was chairperson of Vishakha Committee against the sexual assault. She had to quit the the office of Additional District and Sessions Judge, Gwallior and a brilliant career came to an abrupt end. Just imagine how miserable and defenseless the women officer must have felt over the sexual harassment she had to undergo those days.
The erring Judge is Justice (name with held) posted as Administrative Judge at Gwallior Bench of High Court. I rang up a friend at Gwallior just to find out whether the Judge is still sitting in Court and I was astonished to know that the Judge completed his business listed before his Court. The Chief Justice of the High Court should have delisted him from the conduct of business of the Court. It appears to me that the Chief Justice has not taken the matter seriously enough.
In 1990s there were allegations against a sitting Judge of the Supreme Court namely Justice V. Ramaswamy .The allegations were of financial irregularities during the period when he was Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court.Then I was Hon.Secretary of the Supreme Court Bar Association. We made representation to the then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Justice Sabyasachi Mukherjee. On our representation, the Hon’ble Chief Justice took off the Judge from the cause list of the Court namely the Judge was not allotted cases to be heard by him in the Court Room.The Judge used to come to Supreme Court and just sit in his chamber till 04.00.
Those days series of meetings used to be held on the requisition signs by the members of the Bar for or against the Judge. A political Party was backing him up which ultimately bailed him out when impeachment motion was moved in Parliament and the Judge had gone scot free despite findings of guilt by an enquiry committee of the Judges presided over by Justice P.B Sawant.
When the matter misconduct on the part of Justice Bhattacharjee, Chief Justice of Bombay High Court came to the fore, it was ruled by the Supreme Court that an in-house inquiry can be held for reaching a primafacie conclusion of the guilt of the judge. Hopefully, the Chief Justice of India will take this route.Thereafter, CJI can give permission for the prosecution of the under section 154 of Indian Penal Code as he has committed the offence of sexual harassment. The permission of the CJI is mandatory under a judgment of the Supreme Corurt rendered in Veeraswamy’s case.
The Constitution lays down procedure for removal of a sitting Judge of the high Court under Article 124 and 217 according to which a Judge can be removed from the office by way of impeachment on a motion moved in Parliament.Before that an inquiry has to be held by a committee of three Judges, a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, a sitting Chief Justice of a High Court and a judge of the H.C. This shall give full opportunity to the erring Judge to defend himself.If he is found guilty, then the report shall be sent to the President of India who shall send the motion to the Parliament for impeachment. There also the Judge gets an opportunity to defend himself.
The procedure of impeachment is cumbersomeness that it takes considerable time. In 1996-7, this problem had arisen in the cases relating to Justice Bhattacharjee,Chief Justice of Bombay High Court and Justice Vijaya Bahuguna, another judge of Bombay High Court. There were several serious complaints against them.The then Chief Justice of India Justice took a novel route and held discreet enquiry against them, collected lot of materials against them and confronted them with those materials and forced them to resign and got rid of them.
I am told that this Gwallior Judge had earned the notorious reputation of specially by at as swing women judicial officers.awhile he was sitting at Indore Bench, he was caught red handed but the case was hushed up. I have no concrete proof of such allegations and my allegations are subject to verification but members of the Bar at Gwallior are not very happy with the conduct of this Judge.
I hope that stern and timely action is taken against this erring judge to restore confidence in the Judiciary.
- Amending Powers Under The Constitution - October 12, 2014
- Encounter With Pakistan - October 10, 2014
- SWACH BHARAT-2 (CLEAN INDIA-2) - October 6, 2014
