Almost 15 years after a judicial officer was punished with compulsory retirement for allegedly demanding a bribe from a litigant, the Supreme Court held the complaint to be false and motivated, making little sense for the judge, who had retired long ago.
While the Court decision could little undo the damage caused to the officer, the apex court did the least to “exonerate honourably” the lady officer Nirmala Jhala, then posted as the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) at Ahmedabad, of the 12 charges against her.
The complainant litigant was let off without any fine. However, the Gujarat Government was saddled with a cost of Rs5 lakh to cover the litigation cost of the judicial officer. The amount was to be paid within three months.
The probe against the officer was initiated by CBI on a complaint lodged by one Gautam Ghanshyam Jani. He alleged that the officer in question had demanded a sum of Rs20,000 through his lawyer. Under the Gujarat Civil Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules 1971, a report prepared by a designated Enquiry Officer — Additional Civil Judge MC Patel enquired into the 12 charges and found only one to be true. This charge related to the alleged demand of Rs20,000 where a relevant circumstance was a meeting between the CJM and the litigant’s lawyer.
While the officer claimed the incident to be a “cooked up story” as she was unwilling to grant long adjournments to the litigant’s counsel, her version was overlooked by the Enquiry Officer and the Gujarat High Court, which took up parallel investigations on the complaint.
On December 11, 1998, Jhala was compulsorily retired from service, based on a resolution issued by the High Court, was passed at her back. The apex court set aside this order finding it was a violation of principles of natural justice. Moreover, the apex bench of Justices BS Chauhan and FM Ibrahim Kalifulla was critical of the High Court for shifting the burden of proof on the accused judge to establish that the meeting between her and the lawyer did not take place. “The onus lies on the department to prove the charge and it failed to examine any employee of the court, i.e., stenographer, bench secretary or peon.”
There were material contradictions on facts too. For instance, the lawyer had conviced the litigant that the officer’s husband handled the bribe without noticing that she was still unmarried.
It was clear that the judge was doing her duty and aggrieved by her decision to proceed with the case without granting long adjournments, she was framed in a false case. As proof of this fact, the bench saw there was no adverse entry in her ACR nor was she punished earlier in any enquiry.