2007 Supreme(SC) 259

2007(3) Supreme 106
SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
(From Allahabad High Court)
K.G. Balakrishnan, CJI., Lokeshwar Singh Panta and D.K. Jain, JJ.
Ramesh Chander Singh—Appellant
versus
High Court of Allahabad & Anr.—Respondents
Civil Appeal No. 2015 of 2006
Decided on 26-2-2007
Counsel for the Parties :
For the Appellant : Subhash Sharma, B.P.S. Dharkey, Shwetambra Singh, Ravinder Sharma and V.K. Vasdev, Advocates.
For the Respondents : Ravi Prakash Mehrotra, and Garvesh Kabra, Advocates.

IMPORTANT POINT
It is imperative that the High Court should take steps to protect honest judicial officers by ignoring ill-conceived or motivated complaints made by unscrupulous lawyers and litigants.

Headnote:(i) SERVICE LAW—Judiciary—Disciplinary proceedings against Addl. District & Sessions Judge based on a judicial order passed by him—There should have been strong grounds to suspect officer’s bona fides—Order itself should have been actuated by malice, bias or illegality—Appellant, a judicial officer in State of Uttar Pradesh was posted as Addl. District & Sessions Judge—A murder case allotted to appellant’s court for trial and disposal—There were three accused in that case, two accused already granted bail by the High Court—Third accused, a student continued to be in custody—His three bail applications already dismissed—In fourth bail application filed before appellant, he submitted that he was a student having no criminal history and that there was no likelihood of he being absconding—He had been in custody for more than one year and he pleaded that his father was seriously ill for which he produced a medical certificate—Appellant granted bail to that accused —Brother of deceased sent a complaint to the High Court alleging that appellant had accepted illegal gratification for granting bail to that accused—Administrative Committee initiated departmental enquiry against appellant —Charge sheet contained the only allegation that bail order was passed by appellant for extraneous consideration with oblique motives—Judge who conducted the enquiry held that charges had been proved—Full Court imposed major punishment of withholding two annual increments—Writ Petition—Appellant was reduced to the rank next below, i.e. Civil Judge—Whether imposition of punishment on appellant was justified—(No)—Appellant shall be immediately posted to the cadre of District Judge and paid all monetary benefits.

       Held : Granting of bail to accused pending trial is one of the significant judicial functions to be performed by a Judicial Officer. In the instant case, neither the State nor the complainant had filed any appeal against the order passed by the appellant. The State did not allege that the accused who had been granted bail was likely to abuse his bail or likely to abscond. It is also pertinent to note that the accused to whom the appellant had granted bail was one of the three accused against whom charge sheet had been filed by the police. The other two accused were Rajendra and Raghu Nath. As per the First Information Report, Ram Pal, to whom the appellant had granted bail, and Raghu Nath, who obtained bail from the High Court, had used fire-arms as a result of which two persons died. As per the prosecution case, the accused Ram Pal is alleged to have caused the death of one of the victims while accused Raghu Nath was alleged to have caused the death of the other victim. Accused Raghu Nath was granted bail by the High Court on 20.9.1995. Accused Rajendra was granted bail as early as 19.8.1995. Accused Ram Pal had been in custody for more than one year. The police had already filed the charge-sheet against him and the court was yet to frame the charge against all the accused. Accused Ram Pal was a student and he alleged that had he suffered a loss of one year’s study. He also alleged that his father was seriously ill due to a heart ailment and he produced a medical certificate from one of the professors working in the local medical college. It was under these circumstances that the bail application filed by Ram Pal came to be heard by the appellant and he granted bail to him by an order passed on 22.6.1996. It is also important that the complainant made an attempt to have the bail application transferred from the court of the appellant to the court of the Principal Sessions Court. Though he filed the application for transfer, he did not press for stay of the proceedings. The appellant-officer came to know about the filing of the transfer application and brought this fact to the notice of the counsel who appeared for the complainant and also the State prosecutor. Both the counsel had no objection to the hearing of the bail application by the appellant and accordingly the appellant heard the bail application and passed the order granting bail to Ram Pal. It is clear that by filing a frivolous transfer application the complainant only intended to create a sense of threat so as to influence the appellant not to grant bail to the accused. The filing of the transfer application by the complainant could not be viewed from any other angle. Despite this, the complainant did not file any application for cancellation of bail granted to the accused.(Para 8)

       We fail to understand as to how the High Court arrived at a decision to initiate disciplinary proceedings solely based on the complaint, the contents of which were not believed to be true by the High Court. If the High Court were to initiate disciplinary proceedings based on a judicial order, there should have been strong grounds to suspect officer’s bona fides and the order itself should have been actuated by malice, bias or illegality. The appellant-officer was well within his right to grant bail to the accused in discharge of his judicial functions. Unlike provisions for granting bail in TADA Act or NDPS Act, there was no statutory bar in granting bail to the accused in this case. A Sessions Judge was competent to grant bail and if any disciplinary proceedings are initiated against the officer for passing such an order, it would adversely affect the morale of subordinate judiciary and no officer would be able to exercise this power freely and independently.(Para 11)

       This Court on several occasions has disapproved the practice of initiation of disciplinary proceedings against officers of the subordinate judiciary merely because the judgments/orders passed by them are wrong. The appellate and revisional courts have been established and given powers to set aside such orders. The higher courts after hearing the appeal may modify or set aside erroneous judgments of the lower courts. While taking disciplinary action based on judicial orders, High Court must take extra care and caution.(Para 12)

       Apart from the merits of the case before us, we have also gone into the Confidential Reports of the appellant officer. His integrity and honesty had never been doubted at any point of time. In some of the confidential reports except stating that the appellant-officer was not having smooth relationship with the advocates, no other adverse remarks had been entered. Two Senior Judges of the High Court have entered in his confidential register that the appellant is an officer of honesty and integrity. The fact that it was a case of daylight murder wherein two persons died, is not adequate to hold that the accused were not entitled to bail at all. Passing order on a bail application is a matter of discretion which is exercised by a Judicial Officer with utmost responsibility. When a co-accused had been granted bail by the High Court, the appellant cannot be said to have passed an unjustified order granting bail, that too, to an accused who was a student and had been in jail for more than one year. If at all, the Inspecting Judge had found anything wrong with the Order, he should have sent for the officer and advised him to be careful in future. The punishment of reverting the appellant to the post of Civil Judge (Sr. Division), in the facts and circumstances of this case could only be termed as draconian and unjust. The appellant had been in the cadre of District Judge for eight years at the time this grave punishment of reversion to a lower rank was imposed on him. In our opinion, the punishment was clearly disproportionate to the lapse alleged to have been committed by him. The imposition of the punishment of withholding two increments with cumulative effect also appears to be disproportionate to the alleged lapse.(Para 18)

       (ii) Constitution of India—Article 235—Subordinate Judiciary—High Court is under a constitutional obligation to guide and protect subordinate judicial officers—Every error on part of a subordinate judicial officer should not be attributed to improper motives—Practice of passing strictures or orders against the subordinate officers is disfavoured—Making adverse comments against subordinate judicial officers and subjecting them to severe disciplinary proceedings would ultimately harm the judicial system at the grassroot level—Service Law.(Paras 13 to 17)