Justice should have a clean past

The Supreme Court has asked the Union government and all the state chief secretaries to frame guidelines making it mandatory that detailed police verification reports relating to incumbents of judicial offices are submitted to high court so that persons with criminal antecedents are not allowed to dispense justice at any cost.

The judgment comes in the appeal filed by a Bangalore additional district and sessions judge (ADJ) Khazia Mohammed Muzammil who had conducted judicial work for over three years but his services were not confirmed as high court didn’t write his annual confidential report (ACR) on the basis of the police report that he had a tainted past.

A bench of Justices BS Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar dismissed his petition filed three years ago. The judge was ousted from the service in 2000.

The facts, as detailed in the apex court judgment, reveal an incredible scenario that prevailed in Karnataka even a decade ago.

Muzammil, who was the president of a lawyers association, had moved the HC in 2000 seeking quashing the entries against him in the ‘rowdy and goonda register’ at Karwar police station prior to his selection as the district judge.

Police had sought to justify the inclusion of Muzammil’s name in the goonda list considering his antecedents and past activities.

His name was entered in the “Communal Goonda Sheet’’ on 8th January, 1993. The former ADJ was the general secretary of an organisation called Majlis-Isa-o-Tanzim and was in the “habit of harbouring criminals, who were involved in serious crimes like murder and communal riots, etc.’’

The court also noted that he had been charged with “delivering provocative communal speeches, which contributed in aggravating communal disturbance in Bhatkal in 1993’’.

Though he was the president of the Bhatkal Bar Association, he still used to provoke young people in that institution. Nineteen people were killed and many injured in a group clash.

Expressing anguish at HC’s casual approach concerning annual confidential reports (ACR), court said the HC didn’t write his reports for two years and in its only report submitted in 1997, the HC said Muzammil’s performance and conduct was `satisfactory’’.

Judges wondered whether the police verification report was submitted to the state government and HC before Muzammil was permitted to join his duties as an ADJ.

“Normally, the person, with such antecedents, will hardly be permitted to join service of the government and, particularly, the post of a judge’’, the top court said.

It is mandatory that ACRs should be elaborate and written timely to avoid any prejudice to the administration as well as to the officer concerned, the court held.