Without preparing entire judgment, judge can't pronounce concluding portion: SC

A judicial officer cannot pronounce the concluding portion of a judgment in the open court without the entire text of the judgment being prepared or dictated the Supreme Court has saidThe top court also directed the sacking of a trail court judge in Karnataka found guilty of pronouncing the outcome of a case without preparing the judgmentThe SC direction came on a plea filed by the Registrar General of the High Court of Karnataka who had challenged the HCs division bench order on the judges reinstatement by quashing the termination order passed by its full courtComing down heavily on the Karnataka High Court for whitewashing serious charges a SC bench of justices V Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal said the conduct of the judge is unacceptableIt is true that some of the charges revolve around judicial pronouncements and the judicial decisionmaking processes and that they cannot per se without anything more form the foundation for departmental proceedingsTherefore we are ignoring those charges But the charges which revolve around gross negligence and callousness on the part of the respondent in not preparingdictating judgments but providing a fait accompli is completely unacceptable and unbecoming of a judicial officer the bench saidThe top court said the defence taken by the judge that the lack of experience and the inefficiency on the part of the stenographer has to be blamed was entirely unacceptableAlso Read Gyanvapi case Apex court to hear plea seeking permission for ritual ablutionBut unfortunately the High Court not only accepted this panchatantra story but also went to the extent of blaming the administration for not examining the stenographer as a witness Such an approach is wholly unsustainableIf it was the case of the respondent that the entire blame lay upon the stenographer it was for him to have summoned the stenographer as a witness The High Court unfortunately reversed the burden of proof the bench saidThe apex court said that the high court was swayed unduly by the animosity attributed by the judge to a member of the local Bar and the assistant public prosecutor in granting him reliefWe have not come across a case where the High Court while setting aside an order of penalty has held that there shall not be any further inquiry against the delinquentBut in this case the High Court has done exactly the same creating a new jurisprudence the bench saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever