NEW DELHI: There is no place for flamboyance among judges, the Supreme Court observed on Thursday as it advised those joining judicial service to refrain from using social media.
Dealing with a suo motu case against a decision of the Madhya Pradesh high court to terminate two women judicial officers, a bench headed by justice BV Nagarathna came across a Facebook post by one of the two officers in which she shared her experience in courts on Facebook.
“A judge has to live like a hermit and work like a horse. So many sacrifices a judicial officer has to make. There is no place for flamboyance for a judge,” said the bench, also comprising justice N Kotiswar Singh.
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The case pertains to the termination of two civil judges – Aditi Kumar Sharma and Sarita Chaudhary – who were inducted into the Madhya Pradesh judicial service in 2018 and 2017 respectively.
In all, six women judicial officers were terminated in 2023. When the top court nudged the high court to revisit its decision, the full court of the MP high court rolled back its decision with regard to four officers but refused to withdraw the termination orders against these two officers and recorded adverse remarks against them which were placed in a sealed cover before the top court.
Senior advocate R Basant, who is a former high court judge, supported this viewpoint and said that a judge should be willing to keep away from social media and those who are not willing to do this should not join judicial service.
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The bench added: “Judges should not comment on judgments as platforms like Facebook are open forums. Tomorrow it can be said that on social media they have given a view in a case one way or the other.”
“While interviewing judicial officers, their suitability is assessed. Anybody who wants to keep their freedom should not accept it. There are others who don’t mind having restraints. We keep speaking about judicial ethics and etiquette. A lot of restraint is required on the part of judicial officers,” the bench said.
Basant agreed, but underlined that Sarita Chaudhary had never been told that she shouldn’t be on Facebook. Besides, he said, her post on social media “does not cross the Rubicon of propriety”.
Senior advocate Gaurav Agarwal assisting the court as amicus curiae pointed out that the removal of these officers that till 2019, the two officers were rated highly on their performance. However, in 2020 their performance and case disposal were rated as average. He said that the two judges were not faulted on integrity but on low case disposal based on a unit system calculated by the high court.
The records submitted by the high court, represented by advocate Arjun Garg, showed that while Aditi Kumar Sharma had ‘very good’ and ‘good’ rating in 2019 and 2020, her performance dropped to ‘average’ and ‘poor’ in the following two years. In 2022, the average cases pending before her was 1,500 with the total disposal rate not even crossing 200. She earned only 44.16 units towards civil cases and 269 units for criminal cases.
She informed the court that in 2021, she suffered a miscarriage and came to know that her brother suffered from cancer.
Aditi Kumar Sharma was represented by senior advocate Indira Jaising who demanded that this was a clear case of arbitrary termination and the court must direct her reinstatement with back wages and seniority. She alleged it was due to bitter professional and personal rivalry that some complaints came to be registered against her to tarnish her impeccable record.
The bench, while hearing her out, observed, “Let there be the same criteria for male judges and judicial officers. We will see then. How can you have target units (in the context of case disposal) for district judiciary.”
Agarwal, the amicus curiae, had pointed out that Aditi K Sharma was posted as Civil Judge, Junior Division, Satna from June 2020 to April 2023. The annual confidential report (ACR) for the year 2022 was recorded by Anuradha Shukla, the then District Judge (Inspection), Jabalpur zone who was thereafter posted as Principal District Judge, Ratlam (presently a judge of the Madhya Pradesh high court). The then district judge Anuradha Shukla, under a notification of the high court, was authorised to record ACR of judicial officers of district Satna from April 2021.
In the case of the other officer, Agarwal said that the case for confirmation of Sarita was taken up by the administrative committee of the high court in July 2020 but was deferred due to some pending complaints. She was terminated in May 2023 while the adverse remarks against her were communicated long after her termination, giving her no opportunity to defend herself. The court agreed to continue hearing argument in the case on Tuesday.