Allahabad High Court: Dismissing the PIL filed by Spokesperson of Bhartiya Janta Party seeking quashing of appointment of a retired judge on the basis of religion and seeking a direction for appointing a Judge who is well versed with Hindu Dharma, the division bench comprising of Suneet Kumar and Shri Narayan Shukla, JJ fined the petitioner with a sum of Rs. 25000 for filing frivolous, mischievous petition and also directed the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Advocate for the Petitioner for filing and drafting reckless petitions. The Learned Judge was appointed for holding the enquiry into the Jawaharbagh incident in which two police officers and several common citizens were murdered.
The petitioner later sought permission to not press issue relating to appointment of retired judge and pleaded that “That the petitioner is praying for the quashing of the Justice Imtiaz Murtaza Commission for the reason that the matter relates to a dispute with respect to a Hindu religious outfit and so it is improper to appoint a Muslim Judge to enquire into a purely religious matter related with Baba Jai Gurudev and so in place of Sri Imtiaz Murtaza, some Judge well versed with Hindu culture and Dharma should be appointed to enquire the matter.”
The Bench further observed that it is a serious issue on communal lines has been pleaded tarnishing the image of the Judge merely for the reason of his religion, and that the tone and tenor of the advocate of the petitioner while addressing the Court is of arrogance and threat which is also reflected from his body language. Hence, the Court ruled that the petition styled as PIL is a frivolous, mischievous petition filed for personal gains instituted at the behest of a person seeking publicity, therefore, deserves to be dismissed with cost assessed at Rs. 25,000/- by the petitioner to the Collector Lucknow and for the Conduct of the advocate of the petitioner, the court slammed that his conduct of filing and drafting reckless petitions containing scandalous pleadings and being motivated by personal agenda hence, the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh was directed to initiate disciplinary proceedings against him to adjudge his suitability to continue practice as an Advocate and sent a copy to the Chairman, Bar Council, U.P., Allahabad. [Indra Pal Singh v. State Of U.P. 2016 SCC OnLine All 398, decided on 13th June, 2016]
