The Hon’ble SC has refused to hear the petition against removal of a Hon’ble lady Civil Judge from service in Uttarakhand for allegedly holding a minor girl hostage at her residence and mistreating her.
The Hon’ble three-judge Bench has granted the petitioner the liberty to withdraw the petition and approach the Hon’ble HC.
The petition sought directions to the Uttarakhand government and Hon’ble HC to reinstate the Petitioner with all significant grants including promotion as Hon’ble Additional District Judge with effect.
The Hon’ble full bench of the HC thereafter had suspended the petition of Hon’ble Civil Judge and passed the order of terminating the petitioner from service. The Petitioner has subsequently challenged Uttarakhand government’s order of removing the petitioner from her position as a Civil Judge.
The petition sought invalidating of Uttarakhand government’s order removing the petitioner from service under Rule 3(b)(iii) of the Uttarakhand Government Servant (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 2003.
In the petition filed by the petitioner before the Hon’ble SC, the petitioner has alleged that there are allegations of Institutional Bias and Victimisation of petitioner due to her act of raising questions and challenging propriety on the non-appreciation of material available on record, by the Hon’ble HC while neglecting petitioner and some other batchmates in promotion as Additional District.
The petition stated that the petitioner is victimized by the gross violation of her right to life, along with right to dignity and reputation by the illegal acts of the officers subordinates working at the Hon’ble High Court in damaging her reputation in the eyes of general public by gross misuse of media, in complete abuse of power and infringement of the laws of the land.
“It is respectfully submitted that the petitioners’ complaints are both on account of her personal loss in view of the violation of her fundamental rights under Article 21 of the constitution of India and also her right to livelihood which has been deprived under arbitrary, irrational proceedings which were void ab initio.” the petition reads.
According to the petitioner, it is a classic case where the Hon’ble HC directs investigation on an anonymous complaint against the petitioner and on submission of the enquiry report calls for the objections. The Hon’ble Full Court, without recording any reasons of any kind passed a short ruling that they decided to accept the findings recorded in the inquiry report by the Inquiry officer.
According to the petitioner, the Hon’ble High Court before taking cognizance of the anonymous complaint sent on email, did not even think it proper to inquire into the credentials of the complainant as provided in its own notification in compliance with the guideline issued by the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, laying down that no action should be taken against members of the subordinate judiciary in the State.
The petition has contended that the email /complaint was sent anonymously by the next-door neighbour of the petitioner, who himself in his testimony has asserted that he did not know anything about the alleged victim except having seen her once or twice in the premises of the petitioner. Therefore, the initiation of enquiry proceedings on the basis of anonymous complaint is unjustifiable in the eyes of law.
The petitioner further contended that once the State Government of Uttarakhand by order allowed withdrawal of the criminal case under section 321 CrPC then no disciplinary proceedings could have been proceeded on the same and similar facts.
Additionally, the plea stated that the Disciplinary Authority, in this case the Hon’ble HC, neither passed a reasoned order, nor granted opportunity of showing cause against the proposed imposition of penalty which is completely violative of the mandate of Article 235 read with Article 309 of the Constitution.
The present plea before the Hon’ble Apex Court was led by Advocate Daya Krishan Sharma on behalf of the petitioner.
