SC judge raps a junior judge for attending a hearing while “on duty”
SC judge raps a junior judge for attending a hearing while “on duty”
SC asks him “What are you doing here? What time the Court starts there?”.
New Delhi, Dec. 1 (Delhi Crown): A 2-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up a judge of Delhi Judicial Service (DJS) for taking a “short leave” from his duty to attend the hearing of his personal case.
A bench comprising Justices L. Nageswara Rao and B.R. Gavai was considering an application related to the promotion of Civil Judges Junior Division in Delhi Judiciary.
Noting that one of the applicants was present for the hearing, Justice Rao asked “What are you doing here? What time the Court starts there?”.
The said civil judge replied – “10 AM”.
Justice Rao then said – “It is almost 10.50 now. Why are you here? You should be holding court.”
The civil judge sitting in the court room replied that he had taken a “short leave”. Justice Rao then asked what is this concept of short leave. In response, the applicant said that it means a leave for a few hours.
Pointing out that the applicant is being represented by Senior Advocate P.S. Patwalia, Justice Rao continued, “You are represented by a competent lawyer. This does not augur well for the system. Really sorry state of affairs.”
The applicant then said that he will leave the hearing.
“He is not even apologetic,” Justice Rao told Senior Advocate Patwalia. “Anyway, we are not holding this against you,” Justice Rao added.
The name of the civil judge was, however, not made public.
