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Synopsis

The Allahabad High Court recently slammed a judicial officer for making “wild and tailored” allegations and filing a false FIR against the State's Electricity Department officials.

The high court quashed the FIR lodged by Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Banda Bhagwan Das Gupta in his personal capacity against the Executive Engineer of Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration (LESA), Sub Divisional Officer of Sub Station Faizullaganj, Aliganj, and a contractual employee of the Electricity Department for fraud, cheating, document forgery and money extortion.

Court noted that since the government servants had declined to serve the interest of the judicial officer, he wanted to trap them in criminal proceedings.

Court held that the FIR was "nothing but a tissue of utter falsehood" and it was lodged "to teach a bitter lesson to the government servants, so that they may understand the power and position of a CJM".

"If this is the standard of a Judge, then fate and future of subordinate judiciary is pitch dark and rudderless," said the court.

The division bench of Justices Rahul Chaturvedi and Mohd. Azhar Husain Idrisi asserted that the judicial officer could not be permitted to enjoy his position as CJM and behave and act as an ordinary litigant.

A Judge who himself wants to become a party in a proceeding then he must quit his office first, to maintain the standard of purity and unblemished character. It is not possible that he remain as a sitting Judge on one hand and after using his power prevail upon his subordinate officer to affect arrest his adversary, said the bench.

To avoid such instances in the future, court ordered,

"Such type of conduct shall not be repeated in future by any of the judicial officer, except in the matter of grave and severe nature like murder, suicide, rape or other sexual offences, dowry death, decoity and in rest of the remaining cases, if any, judicial officer or Judge wants to become the first informant in his personal capacity in any F.I.R., he must take his concerned District Judge into confidence and after having the assent from the District Judge, he can become an informant of any F.I.R."

Court directed the Registrar General of the high court to circulate this judgment to all sessions divisions of Uttar Pradesh, apprising the District Judges and Judicial Officers not to permit any FIR by a Judge/Judicial Officer, in their personal capacity to subserve their personal interest, except the cases of serious and heinous in nature viz; murder, dowry deaths, sexual offences/rape or dacoity.

Court also ordered the Registrar General to keep a copy of the judgment in the dossier/service record of Dr. Bhagwan Das Gupta, CJM, Banda.

In 2009, the CJM purchased a house in Lucknow and later discovered an outstanding electricity bill of Rs 166,916 from the previous connection. The previous owners claimed they had settled all dues before the sale and that the bill arose after the sale deed. They noted that the sale deed specified any liabilities up to the date of execution were their responsibility, but the bill in question was not due at that time.

Challenging the electricity bill, the CJM filed a complaint before the court of Additional Civil Judge, Lucknow in 2013 for initiating a prosecution u/s 420, 464, 467, 468, 504, 506 of the IPC against the house's previous owners and officials of the Electricity Department. 

In that case, the proceedings against the previous house owners were quashed by the high court in 2019 and the summoning order against the government employees was set aside by the revisional court in 2021.

Parallel to the aforesaid criminal prosecution, the CJM also filed a complaint before the ‘District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Lucknow’ which was dismissed in 2014. 

Thereafter, in an attempt to "any how launch a criminal prosecution" against the officials of the Electricity Department, the CJM "cooked up a false story" and lodged an FIR in July 2023 at Kotwali Police Station, Banda u/s 406, 409, 419, 420, 464, 467, 468, 471, 386 of the IPC. The officials challenged this FIR before the high court. 

While disposing of the matter, the high court discussed in detail the expected conduct, behaviour and approach of a judge. Court referred to a Sanskrit verse:

"स्वस्तिप्रजाभ्यः परिपालयन्तां न्यायेन मार्गेण महीं महीशाः। गोब्राह्मणेभ्यः शुभमस्तु नित्यं लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु॥"

(May the well-being of all people be protected by the powerful and mighty leaders be with law and justice. May the success be with all divinity and scholars, May all (samastāḥ) the worlds (lokāḥ) become (bhavantu) happy (sukhino).

"In simple words we can say that the judicial ethics, morals, judicial behaviour are the basic principles of the right action for the Judges to ensure their impeccable, spotless and see through image in the society. They consist of or relate to the moral action, conduct, motive, character of a Judge, what is right or befitting to the individual. It can also be said that judicial ethics consists of such values as belongs to the system of the judiciary without regard to the time or place and are preferred for justice dispensation", court said.

Case Title: Manoj Kumar Gupta And 2 Others v. State Of U.P. And 3 Others