Mumbai court grants divorce to Peter Mukerjea and Indrani

Independence of judiciary sacrosanct: SC

New Delhi, Oct. 3: No judge can claim that he or she has never passed a “wrong order”, the Supreme Court has said while observing that disciplinary action should not be initiated against a judicial officer merely for passing wrong order unless there is evidence of extraneous reason.

Independence of judiciary is “sacrosanct”, and unless there are clear-cut allegations of misconduct, gratification of any kind and extraneous influences, disciplinary proceedings should not be initiated merely on the ground that a wrong order has been passed by a judicial officer, the apex court said.

“To err is human and not one of us, who has held judicial office, can claim that we have never passed a wrong order,” a bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose said in their order passed last week.

“In a country, which follows the rule of law, independence of the judiciary is sacrosanct. There can be no rule of law, there can be no democracy unless there is a strong, fearless and independent judiciary,” the bench said.

Independence and fearlessness are not only expected at the level of the superior courts but also from the district judiciary as most of the litigants cannot afford to come to the high courts or the Supreme Court, it said.

“Therefore, it is equally important, if not more important, that the judiciary at the district level and at the taluka level is absolutely honest, fearless and free from any pressure and is able to decide cases only on the basis of the facts on file, uninfluenced by any pressure from any quarters whatsoever,” it said.

The bench made these comments while dealing with a plea filed by a Bihar-based judicial officer, now dead, who had challenged the initiation of disciplinary proceedings against him.

Disciplinary proceedings were initiated against him on two alleged counts — for granting bail to some accused in a murder case despite the fact that their bail petitions were dismissed by the high court and for acquitting an accused in a separate narcotics case and closing the proceedings in “great haste”.

◗ It observed that disciplinary action should not be initiated against a judicial officer for passing a wrong order.