'Judicial Murder': Allahabad High Court Orders Administrative Action Against Trial Judge For Causing Illegal Gain To Party In Title Dispute

The Allahabad High Court recently expressed shock at the conduct of a trial judge for ignoring photocopy of the death certificate of an individual in a title dispute, thereby causing wrongful gain to the plaintiff. Stating that the reasons assigned by the judicial officer were perverse, dishonest and passed to give undue advantage to the plaintiff, Justice Sandeep Jain observed:“The reason assigned by the trial court for ignoring the death certificate of Sushila Mehra is shocking, perverse and tainted with extraneous considerations. The trial court purposely in order to cause illegal gain to the plaintiff has ignored it, which needs to be deprecated. The conduct of the trial Judge is not above board, who has either due to extraneous reasons or due to lack of competence, has passed the impugned decree, which cannot be legally justified in any manner whatsoever. It is a case of deliberate judicial misconduct, which renders the integrity of the Judge doubtful. This is a case which shocks the conscience of this Court that how could a Judge act in this manner, in order to cause wrongful gain to the plaintiff. The facts of the case speak for themselves, the blatant manner in which law has been flouted and justice has been denied. It is a case of daylight judicial murder.”On the conduct of the trial court judge the high court while directing action said:"Office is directed to place this file before the Hon'ble the Chief Justice for taking appropriate action on the administrative side against Trial Judge..., the then Civil Judge (Senior Division), Ghaziabad for passing such blatant, dishonest and illegal order". Plaintiff-respondent Inder Mohan Sachdev had filed a suit before the trial court against the defendant-appellant Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation claiming ownership of the land in dispute based on an ex-parte decree and adverse possession. He had prayed that he not be evicted from the said plot. It was pleaded that decree was final and that he had been paying property tax on the said property. The defendant had pleaded that it was not aware of the about the ex-parte suit. Further, it was stated that in another case filed by the plaintiff in 2022, the fact of death of one Sushila Mehra–who is stated to have rented the property to plaintiff's father–was brought on record and her death certificate was also produced in court. The defendant argued that the fact of 2022 case was concealed by the plaintiff while filing the suit under challenge. It was also pleaded that in a suit between Nandkishore Mehra and Sushila Mehra, the former had been declared the owner of the property by the Delhi High Court.Based on the decree in the earlier suit, the Trial Court concluded that the plaintiff was the owner of the land. It was stated that the death of Sushila Mehra was not verified by the defendants. It also noted that the defendant-Nagar Nigam was continuously realising property tax from the plaintiff without raising any objections. This order was challenged by the defendants before the High Court in appeal. The trial court has rejected the photo copy of the death certificate of Sushila Mehra on the ground that it was inadmissible in evidence.The Court noted that the Trial Court had rejected the death certificate of Smt. Sushila Mehra only because it was a photocopy. “It is pertinent to mention here that death and birth certificates are never filed in the original because they always remain with the person concerned or his/her legal heirs, and in a judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding, only a true copy of them is filed. It is further pertinent to mention here that the defendants being the 3rd parties, could never have benefitted from filing the false death certificate of Sushila Mehra. In view of this, there was no justifiable reason for the trial court to ignore the copy of the death certificate of Sushila Mehra.”Noting that the copy of the ex-parte decree and another suit were filed by the legal heirs of the deceased, and that the death certificate was issued by the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad, it was held that Sushila Mehra's death was irrelevant in the inheritance of defendants and that there was no reason to doubt the death certificate. It was held that the suit of 2019 was filed much after the death of Smt. Mehra (in 1996) and therefore a decree against a dead person was a nullity. Therefore, it was held that the earlier decree conferred no rights on the plaintiff. Further, the Court noted that the property was rented to plaintiff's father by Sushila Mehra and ownership was claimed by the former based solely on adverse possession. “It is well settled that once having entered the disputed property as a tenant, the tenant is not entitled to claim its ownership on the basis of adverse possession, because the tenant is bound to hand over the vacant possession of the disputed property to the landlord/owner and he cannot deny the title of his landlord in the disputed property.”The Court held that decree impugned...

'Judicial Murder': Allahabad High Court Orders Administrative Action Against Trial Judge For Causing Illegal Gain To Party In Title Dispute

Upasna Agrawal

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