'Error Of Judgment, Not Major Misconduct': MP High Court Grants Relief To Judge Dismissed From Service After Granting Bail To Murder Accused

While granting relief to a District and Sessions Judge, the Madhya Pradesh High Court replaced the punishment of dismissal from service imposed on the judicial officer with punishment of withholding two increments.The Court opined that the dismissal of the judge was based on an error of judgement and not major misconduct. Thus, the Court termed the punishment of dismissal from service as 'shockingly disproportionate'. The District and Sessions Judge was dismissed from service for allowing bail application of a murder accused after rejection of his four successive bail applications by the High Court. The division bench of Chief Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Vivek Jain observed, “…this case is a case of error of judgement, and very thinly crossing the line of not maintaining judicial discipline, though the same seems to be under a mistaken belief that the petitioner was still having liberty to consider the repeat bail application in terms of liberty granted while deciding the second bail application by the High Court, which was never expressly withdrawn, but was impliedly withdrawn, by allowing subsequent bail applications filed before it to be rejected/withdrawn as not pressed…It is certainly not a case of any major misconduct and not a case of wilful behavior by the Trial Judge passing orders stubbornly disregarding the order of the High Court. Though the order was erroneous but here was a case where confusions were being created by contradictory orders passed by the High Court in subsequent bail applications. Therefore, in our opinion it is a case of erroneous order and only because the petitioner subsequently did not cancel the bail, it cannot be said that the petitioner committed any major misconduct.”A petition was filed challenging the order whereby the petitioner who was working as Additional District and Sessions Judge was dismissed from service by the Government of Madhya Pradesh. A charge-sheet was issued to the petitioner on the ground that in a pending Sessions Trial, the petitioner with corrupt motive or for some extraneous consideration, had allowed the bail application of a murder accused after rejection of his four successive bail applications by the High Court. As per the petitioner, the accused whose bail application was allowed by the petitioner had earlier filed first bail application before the High Court which was dismissed as not pressed. In the second bail application, the High Court held that the trial court shall decide the trial within a period of four months and if the trial is not concluded within the said period then the accused would be at liberty to move fresh application before the trial court. In the third bail application, bail was not granted. Lastly, in the fourth bail application, the High Court had granted six months' time to conclude the trial. Even though High Court granted six months to conclude the trial, the accused was granted bail by the petitioner. Thus, it was alleged to be against judicial discipline and propriety and that the petitioner had failed to maintain absolute integrity and devotion to duty expected of a judicial officer.The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the Inquiry Officer in the enquiry report held that no corrupt conduct nor any extraneous consideration or mal-intention had been proved in the Departmental Enquiry in the matter of grant of bail to the accused person. The report only said that the act of the petitioner amounted to judicial indiscipline because he failed to maintain Judicial discipline as he granted bail to an accused whose bail applications have been rejected by the High Court.The counsel argued that it was a case of oversight and inadvertence as the petitioner did not take into account the true effect of subsequent orders of the High Court while allowing the bail application of the accused person. It was further argued that there was nothing on record to substantiate that the subsequent orders of the High Court in bail applications were sent by the High Court to the file of the Sessions Judge so that the petitioner can be said to have failed to adhere to judicial discipline by granting bail to the accused person.On the contrary, the counsel for respondents contended that the petitioner had failed to maintain judicial discipline by allowing bail application of accused in sessions trial though the High Court had repeatedly rejected the bail applications. In spite of that, the Sessions Judge allowed the bail application which amounted to judicial indiscipline and judicial impropriety not expected of a senior judicial officer posted in Higher Judicial Services.It was further argued that it was brought on record in the enquiry report that the subsequent bail rejection orders and bail withdrawal orders of the High Court were placed before the file of Sessions Court by the complainant.After perusal of the record, the Court noted that the petitioner had knowledge of subsequent withdrawal/dismissal of repeat bail...

'Error Of Judgment, Not Major Misconduct': MP High Court Grants Relief To Judge Dismissed From Service After Granting Bail To Murder Accused

Anukriti Mishra

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