JUDGE YE NOT LEST YE BE JUDGED

From,

            Harjinder Singh,

            Register (Inspection-II), Appellate Side,

            High Court, Kolkata-70001.

To

            The Registrar (Inspection-II),

            Appellate Side, High Court, Kolkata-700001.

            Dated, Kolkata the 17th day of September, 2010.

Subject:- A representation against the Gradation ‘Average’ made in my ACR for

            the year 2007 and the Gradation ‘Average’  i.e. ‘D’ recommended by the

            Hon’ble Justice Girish Chandtra Gupta for the year 2008 which was

            ordered on 10.04.2010 by the Hon’ble Chief Justice to be placed before the

            Administrative Committee for consideration.

Sir,

            With due respect, I humbly submit that I am submitting a representation against the assessment of gradation in respect of my performance for the year 20007 which was unjustly graded “Average” and also in respect of the gradation recommended by His Lordship Justice Girish Candra Gupta for the year 2008 though not yet finalized, has been ordered  by the Hon’ble Chief Justice be placed before the Administrative Committee. Before recommending “Average” for the year 2008, Hon’ble Justice Mr. Gupta called me in His Lordship’s Chamber, showed me the remarks given by His Lordship and later on 09-09-2010 he discussed the remarks given by His Lordship and as such I am aware of the Comments passed by His Lordship on the Judgements delivered by me during the year 2008.

            FIRST: REGARDING THE QUANTITY OF DISPOSAL:

            In this regard, I would like to reproduce some data from my past 5 years records to show that Assessment  based on Unit system often does not reflect the real Hard work put in by a Judicial Officer during a month or year on account of several factors. My thesis is that amongst the WBHJS officers posted as ordinary Regular ADJs are the worst sufferers and the only exception to the Rule are the District Judges and ADJs posted in the Sub-Division and having almost similar filing powers, particularly regarding bail matters, vested in them by virtue of West Bengal Amendment Act (Act 24 of 1988) u/Sec.9(3) of the Cr.P.C. Regular ADJs without such filing powers are the worst sufferers on account of the following reasons:-

a)     No filing powers mean no or negligible filing as well as disposal of bail petitions u/Sec.439 of the Cr.P.C. and also complete absence of Criminal Misc. Cases and therefore low Units per day.

b)    Another source of earning more units is disposal of Sessions Cases for which very high Units are reserved even though the Judgement may be one of “acquittal” generally completed in less than 4 pages and within half an hour. But ordinary Regular ADJs get very few Sessions cases for disposal in view of directions of Hon’ble High Court to the District Judges to transfer all sessions/Criminal cases only to the Additional Sessions Judges, posted in Fast Track Courts while all Civil matters such as Title Appeals, Misc. Appeals, MACC cases, Matrimonial Suits etc. etc. only are transferred to the Regular ADJs with the result that Unit churning Sessions cases go only to the Fast Track Courts while, tedious matters with less units per case such as NDPS cases, Electricity Cases, MACC cases, Title  Appeals, Mat Suits etc. where the quantum of labour required to be put in for disposal is though very high, units earned on disposal of such cases is often meager and the officer suffers for no fault on his part. For example, a two page Judgement of acquittal in a Sessions case would earn the officer concerned 10 or more units while even a ten page disposal of an MACC case u/Sec.166 of the MV Act would earn the concerned officer merely 3 units. This is blatantly unfair and needs to be revised. This often leads to unjust results. For example in the year 2007 and 2008, I received only 2.82 and 3.62 units by disposing of higher number of cases i.e. 227 and 378 cases because in these two years, disposal of MACC cases (which fetch only 1 unit in a case u/Sec.140 MV Act and only 3 units in a case u/Sec.166 of MV Act) was high.

c)     A low pendency of cases in remote Sub-divisions inevitably lead to low disposal of cases as because the Advocates in such a situation become interested in obtaining adjournments as no body wants to become brief-less.

SECONDLY REGARDING THE QUALITY OF MY JUDGEMENTS:- A perusal of the comments made by the Hon’ble Justice Girish Chandra Gupta the then Judge-in-charge of the District would show that I am a victim of unfair comments that can not be sustained in the eye of law as would become clear from the replies given by me in respect of such comments one by one.

(A) Remarks on the Judgements of the year 2007 and my replies.

(B) Remarks on the Judgements of the year 2008 and my replies:-

          In view of the submissions made by me above both regarding the quality and quantity of the Judgements delivered by me and my replies against the comments of the Hon’ble Justice Girish Gupta, I am of opinion that I deserve much better gradation for the 2007 and 2008 than what has either been awarded for the year 2007 or recommended by the Hon’ble Justice for the year 2008. I, therefore, request you to kindly place my representation before the Administrative Committee so that there be a fair up-gradation as regards my performance for the two years keeping in view the Gradation for the previous five years.

                                                                         Yours faithfully,

                                                                      Sd/-

                                                                         17-09-10

                                                                                        (Harjinder Singh)

Note: My aforesaid representation was later placed before the Administrative Committee of the Hon’ble  Calcutta High Court, and the Administrative Committee was pleased to reject my representation on the grounds that my disposal was poor. Now after my retirement, I am placing it before my friends for them to Judge if the rejection was correct or not.