NEW DELHI: Taking serious note of “judicial indiscipline” of Punjab and Haryana

high court judge

Rajbir Sherawat by showing defiance towards a

Supreme Court

order, CJI D Y Chandrachud and four most senior judges decided to form a bench on Wednesday to decide the future course of action in regard to the HC judge’s July 17 order.
Justice Sherawat

had remarked in his order: “A tendency to presume the Supreme Court to be more ‘Supreme’ than it actually is and to presume a high court to be less ‘High’ than it constitutionally is.”
The bench of

CJI Chandrachud

, and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, Surya Kant and Hrishikesh Roy will tackle Justice Sherawat’s order, who had reluctantly adjourned a contempt proceeding initiated by him because of SC’s stay.

SC direction is to make HCs servile to apex court: Justice Sherawat

Justice Sherawat had said, “But this (adjourning a case because of SC order) may not be always possible for an HC to follow such a course in view of particular facts and circumstances embedded in a particular case or because of involvement of some statutory provisions. That would be an unfortunate situation, which would better be avoided.”
Justice Sherawat had gone on to propagate that

contempt proceedings

initiated by a single-judge HC bench had to be appealed before the division bench of HC and that the role of SC would arise only when the contemnor, whose conviction is upheld by the division bench, files an appeal in the apex court. It is an elementary fact that SC has overarching jurisdiction over any matter before any court, including HCs, and on any subject whether pending in any court or not.

Justice Sherawat said, “SC may have power to permit a special appeal by a ‘party’ to contempt proceedings before HC , against certain types of orders of contempt court under certain circumstances, however, in the present case neither there are any such circumstances, nor has any such special appeal been filed by the respondents against any such order of the contempt court. Hence, in the given circumstances, the order of SC turns out to be simply in the nature of putting an estoppel on the powers of HC exercisable under Article 215 of the Constitution of India and under the Contempt of Courts Act.”
“However, it is highly doubtful if the apex court has any such power to stay operation of Article 215 of the Constitution of India and the Contempt of Courts Act, per se. Probably more caution on the part of SC would have been more appropriate,” the judge said while lecturing SC on

judicial propriety

.
Justice Sherawat faulted SC for attempting to control the roster of HC and issuing guidelines for designation of senior advocates and said this direction is to make HCs servile to SC. He said SC did not fathom the damage it has caused by staying the contempt proceedings initiated by him. Defending initiation of contempt proceedings relating to non-filling up of judicial officers’ post, the HC judge asked, “Who is responsible for this plight of judicial officers manning the superior judiciary of state of Punjab and state of Haryana. Is it HC or is it SC ?”
Punching way beyond his judicial weight, Justice Sherawat said in his humble opinion HC “should sound a note of caution even for SC to be more specific in causing

legal consequences

through its order”.