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PETITIONER: KASHI NATH ROY

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: STATE OF BIHAR

DATE OF JUDGMENT:       18/04/1996

BENCH: PUNCHHI, M.M. BENCH: PUNCHHI, M.M. THOMAS K.T. (J)

CITATION:  1996 SCC  (4) 539        JT 1996 (4)   605  1996 SCALE  (3)771

ACT:

HEADNOTE:

JUDGMENT:                          O R D E R      Delay condoned.      Leave granted.      This is an appeal by a Judicial Officer in the Superior Judicial Service  serving in  the State  of  Bihar,  who  is aggrieved against  an order of a learned Single Judge of the High Court  of Patna  in refusing  to expunge remarks passed against him in a judicial order.      The broad  facts giving  rise to  this appeal  are that some accused  in a  dacoity case,  at  one  point  of  time, approached the  Court  of  Session,  Munger  for  bail.  The learned Sessions  Judge rejected  their bail  application on 15-4-1991.  About   three  months  later,  the  request  was renewed.  The  appellant  by  then,  had  assumed  Chair  in succession. Prayer for bail was reiterated before him on the ground that  the evidence  of Test  Identification Parade of the culprits  gathered by  the  investigation,  an  evidence important in  a dacoity case, was highly suspicious inasmuch as the  witnesses who  were made to participate in the same, had already  on their own disclosed the names of the accused committing the  crime to  the Investigating  Officer,  which fact the  appellant  verified  from  the  case-diary  to  be correct. Viewing  that ground for bail had been made out, he granted bail  to the  accused persons vide order dated 17-8- 1991. This  provoked an application for cancellation of bail at the  instance of the complainant before the High Court. A learned Single  Judge of that Court set aside that order and cancelled bail  passing remarks that the appellant seemed to have been  over-zealous, having  gone  out  of  his  way  in virtually approving the defence case, involving the merit of the matter,  as if sitting on trial, forgetting the scope of discussion in  disposing of  a bail  matter. Having observed this, he passed the following order:      "While parting  with the  order,  I      must opine  that by  the  aforesaid

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    act, it remains not at all doubtful      that this officer has intentionally      exceeded  and/or  transgressed  his      limits  by   avoiding  and  in  not      maintaining     the     established      decorous norms  of the Institution.      I,  therefore,   say  that   in  my      considered view, this officer, Shri      K.N.   Roy,   the   then   Incharge      sessions  Judge,  Munger,  must  be      appropriately  condemned  and,  for      this, I  understand that  the  only      proper  forum  being  the  Standing      Committee of the Court, this matter      may   laid    before    it    under      administrative  approval   of   the      Hon’ble Chief Justice, as scheduled      by his  Lordship. And  ultimately I      suggest that this officer should be      divested from exercise of powers on      the criminal side"      The appellant’s  effort to  have expunged  remarks made qua him in the orders of the High Court, in particular those as extracted above, failed giving rise to this appeal.      As embedded  in the criminal jurisprudence obtaining in this country,  courts exercising  bail jurisdiction normally do and  should refrain from indulging in elaborate reasoning in their  orders in  justification of  grant or non-grant of bail. For,  in that manner, the principle of "presumption of innocence  of   an  accused"   gets  jeopardized;   and  the structural principle of "not guilty till proved guilty" gets destroyed,  even   though  all  sane  elements  have  always understood that  such views  are tentative and not final, so as to  affect the  merit of  the matter. Here, the appellant has been caught and exposed to a certain adverse comment and action solely because in reasoning he had disclosed his mind while granting  bail. This  may have  been avoidable  on his part, but in terms not such a glaring mistake or impropriety so as to visit the remarks that the High Court has chosen to pass on  him as  well as  to initiate action against him, as proposed.      It  cannot  be  forgotten  that  in  our  system,  like elsewhere, appellate  and revisional courts have been set up on the  pre-supposition that  lower  courts  would  in  some measure of  cases go wrong in decision-making, both on facts as also  on law, and they have been knit-up to correct those orders. The  human element  in justicing  being an important element, computer-like functioning cannot be expected of the courts; however  hard  they  may  try  and  keep  themselves precedent-trodden in  the scope  of discretions  and in  the manner of  judging. Whenever  any such  intolerable error is detected by  or pointed  out to  a  superior  court,  it  is functionally required  to correct  that error  and may, here and  there,   in  an  appropriate  case,  and  in  a  manner befitting,  maintaining   the  dignity   of  the  Court  and independence  of   judiciary,  convey  its  message  in  its judgment to  the officer  concerned  through  a  process  of reasoning, essentially  persuasive, reasonable,  mellow  but clear, and  result-orienting, but  rarely as a rebuke. Sharp reaction of  the kind  exhibited in  the afore-extraction is not in  keeping with  institutional functioning. The premise that a  Judge committed  a mistake  or an  error beyond  the limits of tolerance, is no ground to inflict condemnation on the Judge-Subordinate,  unless there  existed something else and for exceptional grounds.

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    We should  therefore think,  without much ado, that the High Court  was unkind  to the  appellant and  therefore the afore-paragraph deserves to be and is hereby pulled out from the orders  of the  High Court  dated  28-1-1993  passed  in Criminal Miscellaneous  No.12034 of  1991 titled Lala Pandey vs. State of Bihar and 3 others decided by the High Court of Patna, as  well as  all other  references in  the said order which tell upon the functioning of the appellant.      We thus  conclude resisting  the temptation  to say any more.      The appeal is allowed.