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Showing contexts for: judicial discipline in Prerna Sharma vs State Of H.P. And Another on 2 June, 2017Matching Fragments
13. To my mind, the action of the Magistrate is clearly subversive to judicial discipline and amounts to gross impropriety because so long the order passed by this Court was in force, the Magistrate could not have entertained the application for bail much less granted the bail.
14. Judicial discipline requires decorum known to law which warrants that that the appellate directions should be followed in the hierarchical system by the Court which exists in this country. It is necessary for each lower tier to accept loyally the decisions of the higher tier. The judicial system only works if someone is allowed to have the last word and if that last word, once spoken, is loyally accepted.
"[5] Normally this court does not interfere with bail matters and the orders of the High Court are generally accepted to be final relating to grant or rejection of bail. In this case, .
however, there are some disturbing features which have persuaded us to interfere with the order of the High Court. The matrix of facts detailed above would show that three successive bail applications made on behalf of respondent No. 1 had been rejected and disposed of finally by Justice Kamleshwar Nath. In that view it would have been appropriate and desirable and also in keeping with the prevailing practice in the High Court that the bail application which was filed in June 1986 should have been placed before Justice Kamleshwar Nath for disposal. In fact on June 3, 1986, Justice D. S. Bajpai being conscious of this practice and judicial discipline himself passed order directing the bail application to be placed before Justice Kamleshwar Nath but subsequently on 7th June 1986 he recalled his order. We are of the opinion that Justice D. S. Bajpai should not have recalled his order dated June 3, 1986 keeping in view the judicial discipline and the prevailing practice in the High Court. Justice D. S. Bajpai was persuaded to the view that Justice Kamleshwar Nath had passed orders on March 18, 1986, releasing the bail application the matter was therefore not tied up to him. However, the learned Judge failed to notice that when the bail application was listed before Justice Kamleshwar Nath on March 24, 1986 the respondent No. 1, for reasons known to him only, withdrew his application, as a result of which Justice Kamleshwar Nath dismissed the same as withdrawn. This fact was eloquent enough to indicate that respondent No. 1 was keen that the bail application should not be placed before Justice Kamleshwar Nath. Long standing convention and judicial discipline required that respondent's bail application should have been placed before Justice Kamleshwar Nath who had passed earlier orders, who was available as Vacation Judge. The convention that subsequent bail application should be .
not consider the prevalent practice and the long standing convention on which basis an endorsement was asked for on every bail application that no bail application is pending in any other court. As pointed out above, the long standing convention has also the binding effect in order to maintain judicial discipline and decorum and, therefore, in my opinion these long standing convention and judicial discipline cannot be ignored. The purpose behind this convention is to maintain public faith in judicial system as well as the orders passed by the courts. Whenever there is violation of this convention, litigants in general used to raise their voice and if these conventions will be allowed to be violated then in my opinion it will involve judicial anarchy. If the subordinate courts are permitted to grant bail in cases where bail applications are being heard by this Court and are pending, then conflicting and contrary orders can be passed and it would be very difficult to maintain consistency and in my opinion if there will be inconsistency then it will result in judicial anarchy."
provisional bail after the High Court had rejected two earlier bail applications, the conduct of the Magistrate was found to be against judicial discipline and the Chief Justice was asked to take action against the Magistrate on the administrate side. It is apt to reproduce the relevant observations, which read thus:
"[2] In view of the fact that the Judicial Magistrate at a later stage has himself cancelled the bail, it is not necessary for us to pass any order with regard to the petitioner's prayer for cancellation of bail but the disturbing feature of the case is that though two successive applications of the accused for grant of bail were rejected by the High court yet the learned Magistrate granted provisional bail. The course adopted by the learned Magistrate is not only contrary to settled principles of judicial discipline and propriety but also contrary to the statutory provisions. (See in this connection Shahzad Hasan khan case.) The manner in which the learned Magistrate dealt with the case can give rise to the apprehensions which were expressed by the complainant in her complaint, which was treated by this court as a writ petition and is being dealt with as such. In the course that we are adopting, we would not like to comment upon the manner in which the learned Magistrate dealt with the case any more at this stage. We, in the facts and circumstances stated above, direct that a copy of this order be sent to the chief justice of the Patna High court for taking such action on the administrative side as may be deemed fit by him."