Above: Delhi High Court/Photo: Anil Shakya; (inset)
(L-R) Justice Valmiki Mehta, Justice Indermeet Kaur and Justice Kamini Lau

~By Rajesh Kumar

In a strike-back for a clear case of insubordination of a junior judge – additional district judge Kamini Lau at the Tis Hazari Court – two Delhi High Court judges, Valmiki Mehta and Indermeet Kaur on Friday (December 22) not only rebuked the junior judge for “personal remarks” but also held her in criminal contempt. In its order the bench said the reason was that “her averments tend to scandalize or lower the authority of the court”.

The judges, in their order, said: “…whereas we have already reproduced four orders passed by the learned Single Judge of this Court to show that each of the orders reflect correct judicial observations having been made by the learned Single Judge… against the four impugned judgments and the orders passed by the applicant/judicial officer which are subject matters of the four RFAs. We found it unbelievable and unacceptable that the applicant/judicial officer has crossed all norms of acceptable behaviour and made personal allegations against the learned Single Judge… including stating that the learned Single Judge of this Court is selectively targeting the applicant/judicial officer.”

Judge Lau had not taken lightly to a comment by the Single judge of the Delhi High Court, on four cases where she had directed sale deeds to be returned, but the single judge had differed. In his judgment on the ADJ’s directive, he had mentioned: “…Such a finding can have vast repercussions leading to rendering the securities held by all the banks not worth the paper they are engrossed on and the learned Additional District Judge ought not to have returned such a finding in a casual manner.

“A copy of the impugned judgment along with a copy of this order be placed before the Committee of Inspecting Judges of this Court of the learned Additional District Judge.”

The ADJ, going beyond her authority, had asked the above portion of the single judge’s judgment to be expunged. She maintained that such comments would hinder her career progress.  However, as per judicial protocol, this was a completely “no-no” and a repercussion from the higher court was only expected.

What the higher court studied was whether the single judge had actually made disparaging statement against the ADJ and found that the order was within civil and judicial limits. The contempt order followed because though the Supreme Court has ruled that no higher judge can make disparaging statements against a junior judge, a critical perspective in civil language is always allowed.

The High Court bench’s order (see here) will remain a template for future reference.