- (1.) HEARD Shri Murlidhar, learned senior Counsel for the petitioner and Sri Sunil Ambwani, learned Counsel for High Court of Judicature at Allahabad. The petitioner is the Civil Judge (Senior Division) Mirzapur.
(2.) THIS Writ Petition has been filed for quashing the impugned adverse entry awarded to the petitioner by the Hon'ble Inspecting Judge of this Court for the year 1995-96, copy of which is annexed as Annexure No. 1 to the Writ Petition, which has been approved by the Administrative Committee. In paragraph No. 2 of the Writ Petition, it is mentioned that there is no earlier adverse entry against the petitioner regarding his judicial work. Even for the year 1995-96, the District Judge, Mirzapur recommended a 'good' entry to the petitioner. However, the Hon'ble Inspect ing Judge has passed the following entry: "the outturn of work given by him is 112. 79 per cent, but this has been achieved by applying short-cuts. In fact he is a great work-shirker. Though he has put in about 16-1/2 years of service, he has not learnt anything. He is whimsical, callous and completely lacks a sense of judicial responsibility and legal acumen. The District Judge has rated him as "good" but on reading several of his judgments, I found him utterly incompetent and unwilling. My overall assessment of this officer is "extremely poor" (For details see note attached, copy of which be supplied to the officer with the communication of adverse remarks ). His erratic judicial behaviour, makes his integrity doubtful. " We have carefully perused the entry given by the Hon'ble Inspecting Judge. It makes sweeping generalisations, which in our opinion were not justified. In awarding the entry "extremely poor", the Hon'ble Inspecting Judge has only relied upon certain orders passed by the petitioner in judicial cases and has stated that this makes his integrity doubtful.
(3.) WE have also carefully perused he note made by the Hon'ble inspecting Judge, copies of which are annexed as Annexure No. 2 to the Writ Petition. WE do not agree that the note prepared by the Hon'ble Inspecting Judge justified grant ing the adverse entry to the petitioner. For example in suit No. 188 of 1995, the Hon'ble Inspecting Judge observed that the petitioner under Section 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act, was not decided properly. In this connection, it may be pointed out that only the husband filed petition. The wife did not appear alongwith the husband to file the petition nor was it signed by the wife. Six months time had not elapsed between filing the divorce petition and passing the order, and this was regarded by the Hon'ble Inspect ing Judge as an irregularity. Here it maybe mentioned that since the wife's signature had not been made on the divorce petition, the petitioner treated this petition as under Section 13 and not as under Section 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act. Moreover, the wife had given her evidence and the case was decided on merits. There fore, the petition appears to have been decided under Section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act. Moreover, neither the hus band nor the wife moved any application for recalling of the said order. Four of the other orders in question are exparte orders in which no application for recalling the order was moved nor any appeal/revision filed against them. The other four orders were decided on merits and no appeal or review was filed against the said orders. In only one order in question a second appeal is pending in this Court since the First Appeal was dismissed. In one case decided on 23-3-1996, the defendant did not pur sue the appeal against the decree for specific performance and executed the sale deed in favour of the plaintiff. In this connection, we would like to point out the difficulties and adverse cir cumstances in which the Judges of the subordinate judiciary in this State are functioning. Against the norm of 300 cases which each Judge is supposed to have in fact most Judges have about 3,000 to 5,000 cases pending in their courts. Against the norm of 75 sessions trial, about 600 to 700 or even more sessions trials are pending in many sessions courts. Apart from this, Judges of the subordinate judiciary are not provided with sufficient and proper facilities for discharging their duties. If proper and } sufficient facilities are provided to the subordinate judiciary we may expect high quality judgments but the truth is that the members of the subor dinate judiciary are not provided with proper facilities and they have to carry and 10 to 15 times greater than the normal load. A large number of courts are lying vacant and the other courts have to carry this extra load. The number of the Judges has to be greatly increased if high quality justice is required from them.;