Legal Eagle: Incompetent Magistrates Should Be Retired In Public Interest

Do judges have to be judged by a much higher standard than applicable to lesser mortals? Going by a recent Supreme Court judgment, it would seem so. Supreme Court bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhati declared an appeal filed by a judge from Uttar Pradesh as “meritless”. They said “we have to judge judges by a higher standard” while reviewing an appeal against the Allahabad High Court’s August 30 decision dismissing Shobh Nath Singh’s challenge to his dismissal from judicial service.

He started off on the lowest rung as additional munsif and was promoted to civil judge senior division by 2008 which was marred by negative remarks in his ACR during 2010-11. Oral complaints of dishonesty and corruption against him could not be proved. Singh was cleared of these charges after being suspended in October 2013 and was reinstated in February 2014 with arrears of full back pay and allowances.

The negative remarks in his ACRs (annual confidential report) remained and further challenges arose in March 2017 when Singh was appointed the secretary of the Mahoba District Legal Service Authority. After he requested transfer citing health problems, the district judge made negative remarks about Singh’s performance, once again raising doubts about his integrity. This culminated in his suspension in April 2019 and a chargesheet in July of the same year, but Singh was exonerated in July 2020.

These remarks about his performance led the administrative committee of the Allahabad High Court to recommend his premature termination in September 2021 upon which the UP government immediately served his termination notice. Singh went to court to challenge his termination but lost in the Supreme Court.

Although the Governor of the state appoints the judges of the lower judiciary after they clear a tough written examination called the judicial services examination and are interviewed by the senior judges of the high court, it is the law and judiciary department of each state government which maintains the service record of such judicial officers such as their disposal rate. The quality of their judgments is evaluated by the district judge who writes their ACRs.

The need for an All India Judicial Service (AIJS) on the lines of the UPSC, where a single examination for candidates all over the country is conducted, has been mooted but not implemented. This would weed out those whose English is weak because the law reports are prepared in English whether we like it or not, and international research in law is published only in the English language. However, magistrates and district judges from the Hindi belt of UP, MP Rajasthan and Jharkhand are unable to write their judgments in good English. They may not be required to do so as their competency in the Hindi language is tested.

Leaving that apart, the Supreme Court has laid down that the entire service record of a judicial officer needs to be evaluated while assessing if he should be forced to retire at the age of 58 years irrespective of the fact that these adverse entries were not communicated to him and he had been promoted despite these adverse entries. Even a single adverse entry regarding the integrity of an officer in the remote past is enough to justify forced retirement.

The Supreme Court laid down that judicial officers like judges and magistrates must be evaluated differently from other service branches because they serve the state by dispensing justice to the people. This is why it is only a committee of high court judges set up by the chief justice that examines the service record of subordinate court judges and magistrates which is then placed before the full court.

It is the full court that takes a decision after deliberating on all aspects of the matter which is why there is hardly any chance to allege non-application of mind or mala fides in not promoting a subordinate judge or magistrate.

In a landmark case of the High Court of Bombay versus Shashikant S Patil and another in the year 2000, it was laid down that the high court recommends compulsory retirement of a judicial officer because it is a collective decision of all the judges on the administrative side who go into the question when hardcore evidence of the doubtful integrity of a magistrate is not available. Hence, compulsory retirement of judicial officers is neither punitive nor does it have civil consequences.

The judges laid down that the high court should not lightly interfere with decisions to terminate or forcibly retire magistrates of doubtful integrity because this was done in the larger public interest. Hence, the writ jurisdiction of the high courts under Article 226 in the high courts or Article 32 if filed in the Supreme Court could not be invoked.

A senior judicial officer from south Goa has reportedly filed a writ petition in the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court last month alleging the high court had not prepared the seniority list of subordinate judicial officers since 2019. The provocation for filing this writ petition was that the judicial officer concerned has been superseded by his juniors whom he has impleaded in his writ petition which has now been transferred to the principal bench in Mumbai for hearing.

While corruption may not have been a criterion, there are allegations of incompetency against this judicial officer in the Subsidiary Investigation Department of the Bombay High Court. This department is also called the vigilance department which maintains the service records of subordinate magistrates throughout Maharashtra and Goa. There are reportedly three or four complaints against this judicial officer.

There was an earlier judicial magistrate in Goa called Narayan Amonkar who was superseded by his juniors in Goa due to his alleged tardiness in the disposal of cases. He was elevated to the sessions court and later demoted but at the fag end of his career was again promoted. Hence, the public interest suffers a setback because an incompetent judicial officer will remain incompetent even after a decade.

The ultimate test is whether a judicial officer is discharging his duties in the larger public interest or not. All other considerations are irrelevant.

Olav Albuquerque holds a PhD in law and is a senior journalist and advocate at the Bombay High Court