Madhya Pradesh women judges termination: Supreme Court to consider sealed cover report against them

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is likely to consider on December 3 the sealed cover report allegedly on unsatisfactory performance and other materials against two women civil judges terminated from services by the Madhya Pradesh government.

The top court, on November 11, 2023, had taken a suo motu (on its own) cognisance of the termination of services of six women civil judges by the state government for their alleged unsatisfactory performance.

A bench headed by Justice B V Nagarathna, on July 23, asked the Madhya Pradesh High Court to reconsider its decision of terminating the services of judicial officers.

The full court of the MP High Court reconsidered its earlier resolutions on August 1 and decided to reinstate four officers, namely, Jyoti Varkade, Sushri Sonakshi Joshi, Sushri Priya Sharma and Rachna Atulkar Joshi subject to certain terms and conditions.

"Insofar as two other officers are concerned, namely, Sarita Choudhary and Aditi Kumar Sharma, there is no revocation of the earlier orders and resolutions and the full court has also further resolved to place the adverse remarks and other materials against them before this court in a sealed cover,” the bench noted earlier.

On Wednesday, senior advocate Indira Jaising, appearing for one of the two terminated judicial officers, sought to know whether there was any fresh material against her client to be rebutted.

The bench took note of the submissions and ordered sharing of a copy of the sealed cover report with the amicus curiae and senior advocate Gaurav Agarwal. The amicus was directed to apprise the bench -- without sharing the report's copy with anybody else -- about the fresh material, if any, against the terminated judicial officers on the next hearing on December 3.

The bench clarified the report won't be shared with the counsel of the terminated judicial officers at the moment.

While taking cognisance of the termination, the bench issued the notices to the high court registry and the judicial officers who had not approached it against the termination.

The judicial officers were terminated despite the fact that a quantitative assessment of their work could not be done on account of the Covid outbreak, the court had noted.

"The officers along with three other women officers were appointed in judicial services in the state of Madhya Pradesh. They are alleged to be terminated from service primarily on account of disposal not being up to the standards set," the office report said.

The termination orders were passed in June 2023 by the state law department after an administrative committee and a full court meeting found their performance during the probation period "unsatisfactory".

According to the plea of impleadment of one of the former judges through advocate Charu Mathur, despite having an unblemished service record of four years and not having any adverse remarks, she was terminated without following any due process of law.

She alleged her termination from service was a violation of her fundamental rights under Articles 14 (right to equality before law) and 21 (right to life and personal liberty) of the Constitution.

In her application, she said if the period of her maternity and child care leave was taken into consideration in the quantitative work assessment, it would be a grave injustice to her.

"It is a settled law that maternity and child care leave is a fundamental right of a woman and also the infant, therefore, evaluation of the applicant's performance for the probation period on the basis of the leave taken by her as part of maternity and child care is grossly violative of her fundamental rights," it said.