SC criticises former Madras HC judge for releasing judgment in criminal case 5 months after retiring
New Delhi, Feb 20: The Supreme Court has criticised a former judge of the Madras High Court for pronouncing a one-line order in a criminal case and releasing the detailed judgement five months after he retired from service.
The top court said that retaining the file of a case for five months after demitting office was an act of gross impropriety.
Setting aside the order of the high court, a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said the operative part of the order was pronounced on April 17, 2017.
Five weeks were available to the judge for releasing the reasoned judgment till the date on which he demitted office, it said.
"However, the detailed judgment running into more than 250 pages has come out after a lapse of five months from the date on which the judge demitted the office. Thus, it is obvious that even after the learned judge demitted the office, he assigned reasons and made the judgment ready.
"According to us, retaining file of a case for a period of five months after demitting the office is an act of gross impropriety on the part of the learned judge. We cannot countenance what has been done in this case," the bench said.
Justice T Mathivanan demitted office on May 26, 2017, and the detailed judgment in the case was made available on October 23 that year.
Quoting Lord Hewart, the apex court said, "Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done."
"What has been done in this case is contrary to what Lord Hewart said. We cannot support such acts of impropriety and, therefore, in our view, the only option for this court is to set aside the impugned judgment and remit the cases to the high court for a fresh decision," the bench said, setting aside the judgment.
"Needless to add that we have made no adjudication on the merits of the controversy and all issues are left open to be decided by the high court," it added.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
