New Delhi: The Supreme Court came down heavily on the Madhya Pradesh High Court for sacking a woman judicial officer on probation due to low disposal rate of cases, saying that it failed to consider her personal health and mental well-being.
“Disposal rate of a case cannot be a yardstick when the judge was suffering mentally and physically,” a bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and N. Kotiswar Singh remarked, while hearing the case of one of the six women judicial officers whose services were terminated by the Madhya Pradesh government on the HC’s advice.
In January, the top court took suo-motu cognizance of the terminations and appointed senior advocate Gaurav Agarwal as amicus curiae to assist the court.
“I wish men had menstruation, then only they would understand,” Justice Nagarathna observed verbally, enraged over the apathy shown by the HC towards the judicial officer’s health.
On Tuesday, the bench heard judge Aditi Kumar Sharma’s case. It perused Agarwal’s note that provided a summary about her case, and the assessment that was given regarding her work since her appointment in 2019.
The bench found that during her four-year-service she was always rated as a judicial officer, who possessed good capacity to do judicial work, and that her judgments and orders were good.
The findings mentioned in the amicus’s note said that the judge’s “marshaling of evidence, reasoning and consideration of law points with reference to the case law are good, qualitatively and in conformity with the requirement of applicable laws, rules and orders”.
“She is capable of managing her responsibilities, her decision making capacity and leadership and initiative, planning for better management is very good. She is able to guide and supervise subordinate staff,” one of the observations said.
The judge’s counsel drew support from Agarwal’s note to point out that the HC, while suggesting her removal, ignored the quality of her judicial work and, instead, focused on the quantity.
Judges in the trial court are allocated units, depending upon the cases they decide. The judge’s units were below 2 out of an average of 4.5. She had secured 4.80 in 2023.
The bench was told that the judge had suffered a miscarriage and her brother was diagnosed with cancer. She was also detected with Covid.
Pointing to the units scored before she was terminated, the bench remarked that the judge was not granted an opportunity to improve, even though she had the potential to do so.
“She gave her reason. A low disposal alone cannot be the only reason (for removing her). You have to see the quality (of judgements) and not the quantity alone,” the bench remarked, adding the HC should have considered the special circumstances in which the judicial officer was when she was on probation.
The bench got infuriated when it was told that the officer’s disposal rate was poor. “It is very easy to say ‘dismissed-dismissed’ and go home. Even we are hearing this matter at length; can lawyers say ‘we are slow’,” remarked Justice Nagarathna.
After making note of the judicial officer’s health condition the judge said: “Particularly for women, if they are suffering physically and mentally, do not say they are slow and send them home. Let there be the same criteria for male judges and judicial officers, we will see then, and we know what happens. How can you have target units (of case disposal) for district judiciary?”
On the complaints that were filed against the judge, the bench said all were found without substance during discreet enquiry.
The bench will now hear the matter on 12 December.
(Edited by Tony Rai)