Gujarat HC upholds dismissal of 24 fast track court judges

Gujarat High Court on Wednesday upheld dismissals of 24 judges of fast track courts (FTCs), sacked for inefficiency and following questions raised on their integrity.

The HC held that judges with poor knowledge of law, and poor or average performance in delivering judgments cannot be continued in fast track courts, as FTCs were created for quick disposal of cases. No evidence was found on their alleged lack of integrity though.
With the observation that ‘Weeding out dead wood is a known proposition in the service jurisprudence’, a bench, headed by Chief Justice SJ Mukhopadhaya, upheld the dismissal of 18 FTC judges of the 36 judicial officers who had approached the high court against their termination from service. Pleas of six more were dismissed because they had challenged their termination before the HC, nearly two years later.
They had claimed that while more than 21 lakh cases were pending in the state courts, it was not fair on part of the administration to terminate their contracts, particularly as there were no serious allegations against them.
Sixty-six lawyers from Bar were appointed to the post of sessions judge to preside over FTCs in 2002-04 initially on a contract of two years. Their term got renewed till 2006, and from then the high court and state began terminating services of these judges. The last termination came in late 2009.
In all, 53 judges were terminated through six different orders. Of them, 36 challenged their termination and sought the high court’s direction to reinstate them to the post. They also strongly objected to the remark ‘unsuitable for service’ as made in their termination letter and claimed that it would be a stigma for them in future and required to be removed.
On a query from the division bench over this remark, the high court and state government clarified that the word ‘unsuitable’ was used to describe inefficiency and not only to define their lack of integrity.
However, the division bench directed the high court’s administrative side to reconsider termination of 12 other judicial officers, who contained remarks of ‘good’ and ‘very good’ in their ACRs.
In absence of any adverse observations by the high court or the Supreme Court from its judicial side against quality of these judges’ orders, the bench noticed that the high court administration and the state government could not explain how these judges were not competent to hold the posts.