'Demoralising': Allahabad HC Judge Requests Removal From Bail Roster Following Supreme Court's Criticism Of His Order

Allahabad High Court judge Justice Pankaj Bhatia today passed an order requesting the Chief Justice NOT to assign him the Bail Roster in future. The move comes just 4 days after the Supreme Court termed one of his bail orders (in a Dowry Death case) as "most shocking and disappointing".Justice Bhatia said that the Apex Court's remarks had a "huge demoralising and chilling effect" upon him. For context, the order in question was passed by the Supreme Court on February 9, in which it strongly criticised the High Court for passing an unreasoned bail order in a dowry death case without taking into account the factors to be considered in bail applications.In that case, the High Court bench (presided over by Justice Bhatia) had granted bail to the husband of the deceased victim by merely recording in the order sheet his period of incarceration and absence of a criminal history. This order was described by a bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan as one of the "most shocking and disappointing orders that it has come across over a period of time"."We fail to understand on plain reading of the impugned order as to what the High Court is trying to convey. What weighed with the High Court in exercising its discretion in favour of the accused for the purpose of grant of bail in a very serious crime like dowry death. What did the High Court do? All that the High Court did, was to record the submission of the defense counsel and thereafter proceeded to observe that the accused was in jail since 27.07.2025 and there being no criminal history, he was entitled to bail. Accordingly, bail came to be granted", the Top Court had remarked. In response to this order, Justice Bhatia today stated in an order that the remark had "huge demoralising and chilling effect" upon him and he requsted the Chief Justice of the HC not to assign Bail Roster to him in future."Although, it is well known that there is no judge who can claim that his order never has been set aside or interfered and I also feel from the perusal of the judgment that the bail order granting the bail was apparently subject to interference, however, the observations made in the judgment particularly in paras 4 and 29 have had a huge demoralising and chilling effect on me...The bail application is released to be placed before Hon'ble the Chief Justice for assigning the same to another Bench with a further request to Hon'ble the Chief Justice not to assign Bail Roster to me in future," he remarked.He also stated in the order that he had read the reports about the said Supreme Court order in LiveLaw.It may be noted that last year, the bench led by Justice Pardiwala had issued a stern order against the Allahabad High Court in a separate case, even directing the Chief Justice of the High Court to refrain from assigning criminal matters to the concerned judge who had declined to dismiss a criminal case on the flawed reasoning that a related civil suit was ineffective.The order had met with strong opposition from thirteen Judges of the High Court, who had written to the Allahabad High Court Chief Justice urging him not to implement the directions of the Supreme Court. However, the Top Court had recalled this order just 4 days thereafter.In another criminal matter, the bench led by Justice Pardiwala expressed displeasure with an order of the Allahabad High Court that declined to suspend the fixed-term sentence without applying the settled position of law on sentence suspension.Click Here To Read/Download Order

'Demoralising': Allahabad HC Judge Requests Removal From Bail Roster Following Supreme Court's Criticism Of His Order

Sparsh Upadhyay

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