ORDER :

1. The Special Leave Petitions have been preferred by the judicial officer manning the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal in respect of certain observations made personally against her in the impugned order dated 24.02.2020 by the High Court of Karnataka at Bengaluru. Insofar as the merits of the case are concerned, the endeavour of the claimants to assail the judgment has been rejected in SLP [C] Nos.8267-8268/2020 on 29.07.2020. We are thus, only called upon to look into the grievance made by the officer qua the observations made against her.

2. Leave granted.

3. We have heard leaned counsel for the appellant on the limited aforesaid issue.

4. Learned counsel has drawn our attention to the observations in paras 13 and 16 as under:

“13………this Court is unable to understand the level of integrity of the Presiding Officer in deliberately not observing these mistakes and proceeding to believe the bundle of lies which are stated in the complaint, which are contrary to the documents which are already on record. This conduct of the Tribunal is really baffling. Be that as it may.

xxx xxx xxx

16……If this is the standard of the Tribunals and if this is the manner in which the Tribunal could be hoodwinked by a ground of tricksters, then there is no purpose in having Tribunals at all and it would be convenient to allow the vagabonds to file false and frivolous claims and get the same allowed at their whims and facies. The manner in which the claim petition is decided clearly shows that there is no sense of order in conducting the

claim petitions. This is shameless state of affairs. Be that as it may.”

5. He further submits that on the one hand, such a strong observation has been made while on the other hand, the Bench while coming to the conclusion has observed in para 23 as under:

“23………it is not surprising that when there is concerted effort by the interested witnesses and devious claimants, it is difficult for the Court to get to the bottom of the truth….”

6. The submission of learned counsel for the appellant is that the appellant has been condemned unheard and the observations have serious consequences so far as her judicial career is concerned.

7. We are in agreement with learned counsel for the appellant that the appellant cannot be condemned unheard. We must notice at the threshold that the language used is extremely strong and the Court should be circumspect in using such language while penning down its order qua judicial officers. We really cannot appreciate the use of this language, whatever may have been the conduct of the appellant.

8. It was in any case open to the Division Bench, if it found that the impugned judgment of the Tribunal had grave errors which casts some doubt on the performance of the officer, to direct the matter to be taken on the administrative side in which case notice would have been issued to the appellant to explain her conduct and she would have got an opportunity to put forth her point of view and then it would have been open on the administrative side, if so advised to whether to take some action or not.

9. We may note that the aspect of remarks against subordinate judicial officers and the process for expunging such adverse remarks have formed part of more than one opinion of this Court stating that the power to expunge remarks exists for redressal of a kind of grievance for which law does not provide any other remedy in express terms though it is an

extraordinary power [‘K’ A Judicial Officer, In re (2001) 3 SCC 54.].

10. We may also note that what we have said aforesaid on the language to be deployed has also been opined upon as the overall test of any criticism or observations must be judicial

in nature and should not formally depart from sobriety, moderation and reserve[State of U.P. v. Mohd. Naim -(1964) 2 SCR 363]. It has been categorically laid down that there cannot be an adverse remark made against a judicial officer without first giving an opportunity to the judicial officer to explain his conduct [A