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6. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the Inquiry Officer in his enquiry report has not found that there has been any corruption or extraneous consideration on the part of the petitioner in allowing the bail application. Rather the Inquiry Officer in the enquiry report Annexure P/4 dated 17.07.2014 has categorically held that no corrupt conduct nor any extraneous consideration or mal-intention has been proved in the Departmental Enquiry in the matter of grant of bail to the accused person but the act of the petitioner amounts to judicial indiscipline because he has failed to maintain Judicial discipline by granting bail to a accused person whose bail applications have been rejected by the high court. Learned counsel for the petitioner vehemently argued that once the high court had itself granted four months time to conclude the trial court vide order dated 09.12.2011 passed in M.Cr.C. No. 7617/2011, and set the trial Court at liberty to consider the bail application if trial is not completed within four months, then the petitioner could have considered the repeat bail application of the same accused person. So far as the subsequent rejection/ withdrawals of the bail application of the same accused person from the High Court is concerned, it was contended by learned counsel for the petitioner that same is not on account of willful act on the part of the petitioner but on account of inadvertence in as much as the effect of subsequent orders of rejection and withdrawal of the bail applications of the same accused person by the High Court on 17.02.2012 and 17.09.2012 were misconstrued at the time of consideration of bail application by the petitioner on 09.12.2012 and neither the prosecution nor the complainant had pointed out the true effect of the said order to the petitioner. It was a case of oversight and inadvertence in as much 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-Hakim. It was further argued that there is nothing on record to indicate that the subsequent to orders dated 17.02.2012 and 17.09.2012 passed by the High Court in subsequent bail applications were indeed 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 these grounds it is prayed that the charges against the petitioner are not made out and further that even if the charges are made out then the punishment meted out to the petitioner amounts to shockingly disproportionate punishment in as much as the petitioner was set to superannuate on attaining the age of superannuation in the year 2018 while the impugned dismissal order has been passed in the year 2015 when the petitioner had hardly less than 3 years left for his superannuation and the said dismissal order in the evening of otherwise unblemished career deserves to be set-aside, on merits and in the alternative, on the question of quantum being shockingly disproportionate punishment.

7. Per contra, learned counsel for the respondents have vehemently supported the dismissal of the petitioner from judicial service and it is vehemently argued that the petitioner had failed to maintain Judicial discipline by allowing bail application of accused Hakim in sessions trial though the high Court had been repeatedly rejecting or allowing withdrawal of the bail application of the same accused person despite which the Sessions Judge jumped in between and allowed the bail application which is a blatant act of judicial indiscipline and judicial impropriety which is not expected of a senior judicial officer who is nearing retirement and is holding the post of a senior Additional District and Sessions Judge in Higher Judicial Service. It is further argued that it is duly 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 and the Inquiry Officer has duly recorded the said fact in the enquiry report. Learned counsel for respondents have also referred to the order passed by the High Court in M.Cr.C. No. 1866/2013 whereby the High Court has cancelled the bail granted to accused Hakim by noting that the grant of bail by sub-ordinate court after rejection by the High Court amounts to misuse of power and also noted the judicial indiscipline of the petitioner and had directed copy of the bail cancellation order be sent to District and Sessions Judge of the district concerned for assessing the working of the concerned judge and also to bring the entire matter to the notice of the Portfolio Judge of the District. Therefore, it is argued that the penalty of dismissal given to the petitioner is fully justified because the misconduct of the petitioner is made out and also that the punishment given to the petitioner is not shockingly disproportionate to his misconduct.

16. It is also true that subsequently in third and fourth application filed by the same accused person i.e. M.Cr.C. No. 774/2012 decided on 17.02.2012 and M.Cr.C. No. 5650/2012 decided on 17.09.2012, these applications were rejected/ withdrawn before the High Court.It is also not in dispute that the Inquiry Officer has recorded in para 2(i) of enquiry report Annexure P/4 that on 20.07.2012 the orders passed in M.Cr.C. 4472/2012 (petition under Section 482 of Cr.P.C. filed by the complainant) and M.Cr.C. No. 7617/2011 (order in second bail application) are received by the trial court and the said fact is recorded in the order sheet written by the trial court on 20.07.2012. However, as noted by us above, in the petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C. filed by the complainant though the outer time limit had been relaxed by the High Court but the liberty granted to the trial judge to consider the fresh bail application was not withdrawn in specific terms. Though the subsequent third and fourth bail applications i.e. M.Cr.C. No. 774/2012 and M.Cr.C. No. 5650/2012 were rejected/ withdrawn before the High Court but in the enquiry report there is no clear finding that the said orders were placed in the file of the trial court when the repeat bail application of accused Hakim was decided by the petitioner. The Inquiry Officer has held that in para 2(i) of the enquiry report that the order passed in second bail application granting liberty to the trial judge was placed before the trial court and the order passed in petition under Section 482 filed by the complainant was also placed before the Trial Court. However, the fact remains that the order passed in fourth bail application i.e. M.Cr.C. No. 5650/2012 was duly brought to notice of the Trial Judge while granting bail to the accused person on 09.11.2012.The bail order passed by the petitioner on 09.11.2012 duly mentions that the order passed in M.Cr.C. 5650/2011 dated 17.09.2012 has been placed before the Court. The number was wrongly mentioned as M.Cr.C. 5650/2011 in place of M.Cr.C. No. 5650/2012 but the date and facts are of order passed in M.Cr.C. No. 5650/2012 which relates to the present matter. Therefore, the order passed by the High Court in fourth bail application seems to be duly intimated to the TrialJudge i.e. the petitioner while allowing the bail application of the accused Hakim. In view of the fact recorded in the order dated 09.11.2012 allowing the bail application that on 17.09.2012 the bail application of the same accused person has been dismissed as not pressed before the High Court it cannot be said that the petitioner was not having knowledge of the subsequent rejection/ withdrawal of the bail application of the same accused person.

18. In Krishna Prasad Verma v. State of Bihar, (2019) 10 SCC 640, the Supreme Court has held that high Court has role as guardian and protector of the district judiciary and misconduct is different from erroneous order. Erroneous order will be part of the service record of the judicial officer but cannot perse be deemed as misconduct unless they are passed for erroneous reasons or illegal gratification etc. In the said case decided by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, the judicial officer had granted bail despite rejection of the bail application by the High Court and the order being available in his file, but skipped his attention, but had promptly cancelled the bail once the order of the High Court was brought to his notice. The only difference between the said case and the present one before us is that in this case the Trial Judge rejected the application for cancellation for bail too.However, in the present case, the application for cancellation of bail was subsequently rejected by the petitioner. Therefore, 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.