- (1.) HON'ble Rakesh Sharma, J. :- The petitioner was posted as Additional District Judge, Rampur. A charge sheet was served upon the petitioner in which it was alleged that the petitioner granted bail in a case under Sections 307 and 302 Indian Penal Code against all judicial norms and propriety and for extraneous consideration, knowing that the accused Chotey Mian alias Zaki Mian was named in the prompt first information report of a broad day light double murder case and he was also named as assailant in the dying declaration of Achhan Khan, one of the deceased of this incident and thus the petitioner failed to maintain absolute integrity and complete devotion to duty. The petitioner submitted a reply dated 29. 1. 2002 denying the charges. In the enquiry proceedings that followed the statement of Faisular Rahman, the complainant was recorded in support of the case of the department. The charged officer also examined three defence witnesses, namely, DW-1 Satish Chandra A. D. G. C. (Criminal), DW-2 Dr. D. K. Dubey, DW-3 Sudhir Sharan Kapoor, D. G. C. (Criminal ). The inquiry judge submitted a report dated 1. 12. 2001 in which he found the charge to be partly proved. The conclusion recorded by the learned inquiry judge may be quoted in his own words; "the charge is partly proved. This was not a case for grant of bail. There is no direct evidence of exercise of extraneous consideration for grant of bail but possibility of exercising discretion to grant bail on extraneous consideration cannot be ruled out".
(2.) THE enquiry report was accepted by the Full Court and a resolution dated 16. 11. 2002 was passed accepting the inquiry report and directing that two increments of the charged officer with cumulative effect be withheld - a major punishment. THE decision of the Full Court was communicated by a letter of the Registrar dated 27. 11. 2002. It appears that in the order of punishment, which was communicated to the petitioner by the letter of the Joint Registrar the date from which the punishment was intended to be effective had not been disclosed. Sri Amit Sthalkar learned standing counsel for the High Court states that thereafter the matter was again placed before the Full Court and a resolution was passed by the Full Court on 6. 9. 2003 that the punishment would be effective from the date the order was passed. This fact was communicated to the petitioner by a letter of the Joint Registrar dated 23. 10. 2003. THE petitioner has challenged the order of punishment. We have heard Sri Ashok Khare, senior Advocate and Sri V. K. Goel, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Amit Sthelkar, learned Standing counsel for the High Court. It was submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner that even on the findings recorded by the learned inquiry judge the charge could not be found to have been proved even partly and no order of punishment could be passed against the petitioner. The learned inquiry judge has found that it was not a case for grant of bail and that there was no direct evidence of exercise of extraneous consideration for grant of bail but possibility of exercising discretion to grant bail on extraneous consideration cannot be ruled out. Before arriving at the conclusion above quoted the learned enquiry judge has outlined the circumstances in support of the conclusion arrived at in para 9 of the report which is quoted below:- "the department has examined the complainant. He has stated that after grant of bail, he came to know that the District Judge had taken Rs. Five lakhs for getting bail application allowed by junior Judge. There is no inquiry against the District Judge. Sri Sathish Chandra ADGC (Criminal) and Sri Sudhir Sharan Kapoor, DGC (Criminal) who were examined by the charged officer as DW1 and DW2 have made statements that they had not heard any such rumours. There is no direct evidence in the case that any amount of money was taken for getting favourable order on the bail application. However, in the circumstances of the case possibility of exercise of extraneous consideration while granting bail cannot be ruled out. These circumstances are as follows:- 1. This was not a fit case for grant of bail. 2. It was a broad day light double murder case with prompt FIR. 3. There was a dying declaration and its veracity was neither doubted nor any reference to its veracity has been made in the bail order. 4. There is no contradiction in the FIR and the dying declaration.
(3.) BOTH the deceased had fire arm injuries that were cause of death. The first bail was got dismissed as not pressed and on the next day second bail application was filed on the same grounds.;