Supreme Court chides judge ordered back to law school

New Delhi, Oct 26 (IANS) Additional Sessions Judge Rakesh Tewary, who was ordered early this month to go back to law school to learn the basics, was Friday chided by the Supreme Court for approaching it against the high court order.

A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan castigated ASJ Tewary for "showing his magistracy" for which he was ordered Oct 5 by Justice V.B. Gupta of the high court to undergo a refresher course at the Delhi Judicial Academy for at least three months to learn the basics of criminal law.

"That's a strange way to show your magistracy," Chief Justice Balakrishnan said, castigating counsel for Tewary as he pleaded to the court to expunge the high court's remarks against his client and stall its order.

Even Justice V.S. Sirpurkar, the other judge on the bench, voiced his ire over Tewary for declaring a person, allegedly involved in power theft in the capital, as a proclaimed offender, remarking, "It's atrocious."

"Don't you know that declaring a person a proclaimed offender has serious civil consequences," remarked the bench, which also included Justice R.V. Raveendran.

The bench, however, in a temporary reprieve to Tewary, stayed the high court's order for a fortnight and asked him to go back to the high court for getting its remarks against him expunged.

While ordering Tewary back to law school, Justice Gupta had in his order said, "Since ASJ Tewari does not have even elementary knowledge of the Criminal Procedure Code, it would be appropriate if he undergoes a refresher course at the Delhi Judicial Academy for the law at the earliest for three months."

Irked over a wrong judgement given by Tewary, Justice Gupta had said, "It also seemed he did not know that the subordinate courts are constitutionally bound by the decisions of the high courts."

Tewary had earned the high court's wrath while dealing with the case of one Rohit Kumar, who was accused of power pilferage and had been declared a proclaimed offender by the lower court even as he was trying for bail to evade arrest under the orders of the trial court.

Declaring a person proclaimed offender leads to seizure and attachment of his moveable and non-moveable properties. A person is declared a proclaimed offender only after repeated attempts to arrest him fail.

In his petition to the Supreme Court, Tewary pleaded that the high court's order would do immense harm to his professional career and reputation. He pointed out that before his selection as additional sessions judge, he had worked for 13 years as a public prosecutor and used to teach at the Delhi Judicial Academy, the institution where he has been ordered to undergo a refresher course.

Tewary also contended that even it be assumed that the order passed by him was wrong, it did not imply that he had no elementary knowledge of law and needed to be sent back to law school.

"Day in and day out, judgements of the lower courts are reversed by the high courts and judgements of high courts reversed by the Supreme Court," said Tewary in his petition.

"But this does not imply that the judges, whose judgements are reversed, have no elementary knowledge of the law and need to be sent to the law school," he contended.