Bombay High Court: In an interim application before the Division Bench of A.S. Gadkari and Dr. Neela Gokhale, JJ., the matter was regarding respondent-Judicial Magistrate First Class (‘Judicial Officer’)’s failure to comply with a previous order of the instant Court. The previous order was issued in a case against the applicant/ accused, alleging him of the offences prescribed under Sections 498-A1, read with 342 of the Penal Code, 1860, and Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 (‘the case’).
The Court noted that the order so derogated by the Judicial Officer was dated 24-02-2021 (‘2021 Order’), that directed the Judicial Officer to expeditiously conclude the trial of the applicant by stating, “as expeditiously as possible, however, within a period of 4 months from the receipt of the said order”. The Judicial Officer submitted in her defence that the case came before her for the first time much later than the date of the 2021 Order, at which time, the Court clerk had not pointed out the case as being time-bound by the Court. She further submitted that since she had been dealing with multiple ‘decades-long’ impending cases, she had to attend to each and every matter on priority, and that there was insufficient working staff in her Court as most of them frequented leaves.
The Court further noted that despite the fact that the present case was placed before the Judicial Officer much later since the 2021 Order, she had failed to adopt the steps necessary for the expeditious disposal of a case by not taking a recourse to the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 19733. Furthermore, the Court also noted that even though there were only 9 witnesses attached to the case, the Judicial Officer had sought an extension of 6 months to dispose of the case.
The Court opined that they could not accept the feeble excuses of the Judicial Officer made in favour of her non-compliance with the directions issued vide the 2021 Order, and paying scant respect to it; and further opined that she is not seriously performing her judicial duties and therefore, the attention of an Administrative Committee of the instant Court (‘Committee’) was required.
Hence, the Court directed the Court Registrar to place the Judicial Officer’s report before the Committee for appropriate directions, and for the instant petition to be listed before the Court when appropriate steps have been taken.
[Chandragupt Rambadan Chauhan v. State of Maharashtra, 2024 SCC OnLine Bom 2725, decided on 09-08-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the applicant: Prashant Badole, Advocate
For the respondent: Vinod Chate, APP
Buy Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 HERE
Buy Penal Code, 1860 HERE
1. Corresponding Sections 85 and 86 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (‘BNS’)
3. Replaced by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023
