Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud, J. - (1.) BY an order of a Division Bench dated 17 February 2014, a direction was issued to the Registry to place the writ petition before the Chief Justice for the exercise of discretion under Clause 14 of the United Provinces High Courts (Amalgamation) Order, 1948. The genesis of the petition is explained by the two petitioners, who appeared in person, in paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 of the writ petition, the relevant portion of which is extracted herein below: - - That coming to the subject matter of the PIL, a few days ago Justice Dr. Satish Chandra allegedly misbehaved with a lawyer during a hearing on 22/01/2014. Following the incident, the Oudh Bar Association (OBA, for short) had allegedly passed a resolution against Justice Dr. Chandra and had alleged stated that lawyers will not resume judicial work till Justice Dr. Chandra was transferred. As per the media reports and the personal experience of both the petitioners, most of the lawyers of the OBA abstained from work. That in short, for many days there was almost a complete boycott/strike of the lawyers at the Lucknow bench of this Hon'ble Court. That as per the media reports and the personal knowledge of the petitioners, the OBA called off their week -long boycott of judicial work on 29/01/2014 (Wednesday) following the shifting of Justice Dr. Chandra from Lucknow bench to Allahabad...
(2.) THE petitioners have sought (i) a writ of certiorari cancelling the order of the Chief Justice by which a learned Judge of this Court is to sit at the principal seat of the High Court at Allahabad instead of the Lucknow Bench; (ii) a mandamus that an open and transparent enquiry be conducted; and (iii) a mandamus to frame a transparent grievance redressal mechanism where every advocate, litigant and citizen can register his formal complaint against Judges of this Court or against Judges or Magistrates of any other subordinate Courts under the administrative jurisdiction of the High Court so that each complaint is enquired into and the enquiry report is made public to the extent permissible under law. When the petition came up for hearing before a Bench of Hon'ble Mr. Justice Imtiyaz Murtaza and Hon'ble Mr. Justice D.K. Upadhyaya, the Division Bench made a reference to various averments contained in the petition, more particularly to those in paragraphs 31, 32, 33 and 34 which read as follows: - - That the petitioners also hear that money changes hands in corrupt manner in the lower courts to an extent that can be called horrible and shameless -completely disgusting. Most of the advocates say these words and many of the petitioners' friends have given specific examples in this regards which they don't find appropriate to mention here because it is a subject matter of other specific complaints. That if feels sad to state that even among the High Court Judges, the allegations of financial corruption is raised every now and then. The petitioner No. 1 knows of at least two Judges whom the then Chief Justice of this Hon'ble Court stopped from so many routine works, solely on the basis of charges of serious corruption. It is again sad but true that charges of serious corruption were often raised against some other Judges of this Hon'ble Court whose names the petitioners don't want to disclose in good taste and for decency. That the petitioners were also individually subjected to misbehavior by some of the Judges of this Hon'ble Court while the petitioner No. 1 faced personal misbehavior at Hon'ble Gujarat High Court and even at Hon'ble Supreme Court regarding which the two petitioners sent complaints to various authorities on which no action has been taken so far. That thus misbehavior, corruption and inappropriate actions have certainly come to occupy space in present day judicial working.
(3.) THE Division Bench observed that the first petitioner is a lawyer practicing primarily at the Lucknow Bench, while the second petitioner has stated that she has been filing a large number of public interest litigations before this Court. Bearing this in mind and taking into account the allegations contained in paragraph 33 of the writ petition to the effect that the petitioners were individually subjected to misbehavior by some of the Judges of this Court, the Division Bench directed that the papers and proceedings of this case be placed before the Chief Justice for exercising his jurisdiction under Clause 14 of the Amalgamation Order, 1948.;