NEW DELHI: At a time when over four crore cases are pending in trial courts making litigants cry for speedy justice, a Bihar district judge on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that he has been suspended by the Patna High Court purportedly for completing trials at express speed and seeking retrospective promotion.
Appearing for the district judge S K Rai, senior advocate Vikas Singh requested a bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana for early listing of his petition as the district judge has ostensibly been kept under suspension for completing trial in two Pocso cases within one day and four days and imposing life and death sentence, respectively. The CJI agreed to list the petition for hearing on Friday.
From Rai's petition it's not clear whether the HC suspended him for delivering speedy justice, as has been portrayed by the senior counsel before the CJI-led bench. Rai mentioned about the two Pocso cases where he had delivered judgments after competing trials in a matter of days, but his narration indicated a series of events starting with denial of the first promotion in 2014.
Rai joined Bihar Judicial Services as a civil judge (junior division) in 2007 securing 7th rank among 318 selected candidates. While serving that post in Jehanabad, he was considered for promotion to civil judge (senior division) but was not given by the HC, which apparently examined his judgments and disposal rate. When he inquired about the reason for denial of promotion, he was told about a problem in his judgment writing.
However, on the basis of very same judgments, which were considered previously, he was promoted as civil judge (senior division) the next year. In 2018-19, the HC considered the names of judicial officers for promotion to the post of district judge (entry level). On the basis of his judgments, he was promoted to the post of district judge.
After getting promotion, the petitioner in December 2020 sent a representation to the HC pleading that since there had been no adverse remarks against him since 2007, his promotion to the post of civil judge (senior division) be considered to have been given in 2013-14 instead of 2014-15 as one year delay has made him junior to his batchmates and even the judicial officers who were junior to him.
The HC responded in September last year communicating about rejection of his representation and issuing him show cause notice on "why one of the minor penalties under Rule 11 of the Bihar Judicial Service (Classification, Control & Appeal) Rules, 2020 be not imposed on him for questioning the process of evaluation of judgements and raising unfounded issue of personal bias and impartiality against the person who had evaluated the judgements."
