Illegal admissions: SC puts Allahabad HC judges in dock for violating ‘judicial propriety’

Amit Anand Choudhary | TNN | Nov 26, 2017, 00:58 IST

Highlights

Apex court said order passed by the HC for some unfathomable and inscrutable reason
The HC had allowed the college to admit students without waiting for a response from the Centre and the Medical Council of India

The court called it a case of “judicial indiscipline”


File photo used for representational purpose

NEW DELHI: The permission given by a division bench of the Allahabad high court to a Lucknow-based medical college to admit students just three days after the Supreme Court rejected the plea has elicited a strong reaction from the apex court, which called it a case of "judicial indiscipline" as it minced no words to reprimand the judges for violating judicial propriety.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud expressed "shock" at how the HC could virtually overrule the apex court order and slammed the judges for passing an order "for some unfathomable and inscrutable reason", a deviation which has the "potentiality to take justice to her coffin".

"It is a most unfortunate situation that the division bench has paved such a path. One cannot but say that the adjudication by the division bench tantamounts to a state as if they dragged themselves to the realm of 'willing suspension of disbelief'. Possibly, they assumed that they could do what they intended to do. A judge cannot think in terms of 'what pleases the prince has the force of law'. Frankly speaking, the law does not allow so, for law has to be observed by requisite respect for law," the SC bench said.

The bench noted that the SC had, on August 28, restrained the HC from passing any interim order in favour of the medical college for the current academic year while allowing the institution to withdraw its petition. The HC, however, allowed the college to admit students for the 2017-18 batch on September 1 without waiting for a response from the Centre and the Medical Council of India.

"It is clear as the cloudless sky that the judgment of the high court shows unnecessary and uncalled-for hurry, unjustified haste and an unreasonable sense of promptitude possibly being oblivious of the fact that the stand of the Medical Council of India and the central government could not be given indecent burial when they were parties on record. Such a procedure cannot be countenanced in law," the apex court said.

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"The content of the August 28 order is graphically clear. The HC was not allowed to pass any interim order pertaining to the academic session 2017-18 but the division bench of HC, for some unfathomable and inscrutable reason, referred to certain judgments of this court and allowed the prayer. It is beyond our comprehension as to how the high court could have even remotely thought of passing an order granting the letter of permission for the academic session 2016-17 and renewal for 2017-18," it said.

The apex court said: "It is necessary to add and repeat that the division bench had no reason to abandon the concept of judicial propriety and transgress the rules and further proceed on a path where it was not required to. Such things create institutional problems and we are sure that the judges shall be guided by it."