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HC judges not inferior to top court judges: Supreme Court
The observations of the court hold significance as it comes close on the heels of a recent Supreme Court order by a bench of justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan de-rostering a judge of the Allahabad high court from hearing criminal cases
New Delhi :The Supreme Court on Monday underlined that high court judges enjoy equal place under the Constitution and are not inferior to Supreme Court judges in any way as the court directed a petitioner who made scurrilous remarks against a Telangana high court judge to file his unconditional apology before the high court, leaving it open for the judge to accept the same.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Bhushan R Gavai said, “Under the Constitutional scheme, judges of high courts are in no way inferior to judges of the Supreme Court.” The court said that as an appellate court, although the Supreme Court has powers to affirm, modify or reverse a decision of the high court, it has no administrative control over the administration of the high court or its judges.
The observations of the court hold significance as it comes close on the heels of a recent Supreme Court order by a bench of justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan de-rostering a judge of the Allahabad high court from hearing criminal cases. The direction issued to the chief justice of Allahabad high court was subsequently withdrawn by the same bench following a letter by CJI requesting the bench to reconsider the direction.
Hearing a suo motu contempt petition initiated on July 29 against one N Peddi Raju and two lawyers for scandalous allegations against a Telangana high court judge, the top court said, “When scandalous allegations are made against high court judges, it becomes the duty of this court to protect the judges.”
Raju had filed a criminal case under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 against Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy and others. The CM approached the high court for quashing the criminal case. Meanwhile, Raju filed a transfer petition in the top court to shift the hearing of Reddy’s petition outside the state as he alleged that given the political stature of the accused and the executive control he exercised, there is likelihood of bias in deciding the matter.
The top court said that of late, there is an increasing trend among lawyers to criticise judges. Pulling up Raju, along with the two lawyers - Ritesh Patel and Nitin Meshram – who drafted an d filed the petition containing the allegations, the bench said, “When matter involves a political figure, there is an assumption that there cannot be justice in the high court.”
On Monday, senior advocate S Nagamuthu appearing for the alleged contemnors said, “We feel really sad about the submissions (in the petition),” as he urged the court to consider accepting the apology.
The bench, also comprising justices K Vinod Chandran and AS Chandurkar said, “ The Constitution Bench of this court in the case of M.Y. Shareef and Others v. Hon’ble Judges of the High Court of Nagpur and Others, (1954) has clearly come to a finding that not only a litigant making scandalous allegations, but also lawyer who subscribes his signatures to such pleadings is equally guilty of committing contempt of the court.”
The bench felt it apt to redirect the petitioners to approach the high court judge and ordered the Telangana high court registrar general to revive the quashing petition only to consider the apology. When the matter was pending in the top court, the high court judge had disposed the quashing petition in favour of the Telangana CM.
The CJI-led bench said, “We permit the respondents to tender unconditional apology before the judge of the high court (justice Maushumi Bhattacharya)...the single judge would decide the question of acceptance of apology within the period of one week.”
While the alleged contemnors, who were present in court, insisted that their apology be decided by the top court itself, the bench kept the matter pending and posted it after four weeks. Meanwhile, the court indicated that on the next date, it will be guided by a recent decision by a CJI-led bench where it pardoned a lawyer sentenced for contempt by observing that the “magnanimity of law depends on forgiving and not punishing.
The criminal case against Reddy, that now stands quashed, was registered in 2016 by Raju, the director of SC Housing Society in Razole. Reddy had argued that he was not present at the time of the alleged incident on January 12, 2016.
The high court quashed the case on July 17 observing that the allegations of Raju were not supported by evidence. It further stated that Raju failed to make out a case against Reddy, named as the third accused, in the trial pending before the Special Sessions Judge at LB Nagar.
