Procedures on complaints against judges on SC website

New Delhi: The "in-house" procedures, devised by a five-judges panel and adopted by the Supreme Court way back in 1999, on taking "suitable remedial" actions against judges, accused of misconduct and impropriety, of the apex court and the high courts has been put in public domain.

The apex court registry put the report of the committee on its website in pursuance of a direction issued by the court while deciding a sexual harassment complaint of a former woman judicial officer against a sitting judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court.

The 1997 report of the panel, consisting of SC judges, Justices SC Agrawal, A S Anand, and SP Bharucha and two senior-most Chief Justices of High Courts, P S Misra of the Andhra Pradesh High Court and DP Mohapatra of the Allahabad High Court, was adopted with some changes by the Supreme Court in its full court meeting on December 15, 1999.

The report prescribes three different sets of procedures for taking action on complaints against judges of the High Courts, Chief justices of HCs and judges of the Supreme court respectively.

The procedures to deal with complaints against HC judges says that if a complaint is received by the Chief Justice of the High court concerned then "he shall examine it".

"If it is found by him (CJ) that the complaint is of a serious nature involving misconduct or impropriety, he shall ask for the response thereto of the judge concerned," the report said, adding if the CJ is satisfied that no further action is needed, then he shall close the proceedings and inform the CJI accordingly.

If the Chief Justice is of the opinion that the complaint needs "deeper probe", then he shall forward to the CJI the complaint alongwith the response of the judge concerned and his own comments.

The panel further suggests the procedures when the CJI either directly receives the complaint or they are forwarded by the President against a HC judge.

"If it is found by him (CJI) that it is either frivolous or directly related to the merits of the substantive decisions in a judicial matter or does not involve any serious complaint of misconduct or impropriety, he shall file it," it said.

If CJI is of the view that it needs probe then he "shall forward" the complaint to the Chief Justice of the High court for further comments and the same procedure would be followed as in the case when the complaint is first received by the CJs of the High Courts.