A judge too can make a mistake, a Principal Sessions Judge in Jammu and Kashmir said recently while accepting that he had wrongly made adverse remarks against a Magistrate in a judicial order.
In a matter taken up suo motu, Principal Sessions Judge Tahir Khurshid Raina on July 25 expunged the adverse observations mistakenly made by him against a Judicial Magistrate.
"A Judge is also a human being and fallible to commit a mistake. However, there is a caveat-such a mistake by the judge in discharge of his duty must be a bonafide mistake, an inadvertent error. It is in recognition of this fallibility of the judge to commit an error as a human being, our judicial institution carries a hierarchy of the courts, culminating at the level of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India. This hierarchy exists to avoid any injustice or perpetuation of illegality. The moral of the story is: 'A Judge too can make a mistake and shouldn’t shy away from accepting the same'," judge Raina wrote in the order.
Earlier, judge Raina in his decision on a revision plea had criticized the Judicial Magistrate 1st Class (JMIC), Aishmuqam for an order passed in December 2023.
“It is astonishing to note that how come a Judicial Magistrate, who is an appointee of 2024, and has got a full length training in the judicial academy, will miss to note such an important mandate of the Apex Court in such a litigation which is invariably being filed in the Magisterial courts,” the Sessions Court had written in the order passed on July 09.
However, subsequently, it was brought to the notice of the Sessions Court that current Presiding Officer of JMIC Aishmuqam was not the author of the December 2023 order.
Taking cognizance of the same, the Sessions Judge called for the records and upon verification, found that the author of the order was a previous incumbent and not the present officer. The sessions court then explained why it had made the adverse remarks.
"I recollected the kind of feelings this court had while recording the said observation in the order. They were purely in the context that a lot of painstaking efforts were made by our Judicial academy during the training of our fresh batch of Judicial Officers to make them fully abreast with the latest legal skills and acumen- to deal with the matters in their respective courts confidently, especially in context of those issues which get invariably filed in the Magisterial Court including the subject matter of revision, relating to non-compliance with the mandate of the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, delivered in case titled- Rajesh Versus Neha (2021)," Raina wrote.
The Sessions Judge added that his observation would still hold true for the real author of the December 2023 order. However, accepting that it was misplaced in the context of the incumbent, judge Raina said,
"This Court acknowledges the inadvertent mistake committed by it. Here, this court is reminded of the Latin Legal maxim "Actus curiae neminem gravabit"-----means an act of the court shall prejudice no man. That no one should suffer on account of the mistakes or even oversight made by the Court", the Court observed.
Accordingly, the Court proceeded to expunge the remarks with the observation that the propriety demands from it to set the record straight and to ensure that the unrelated observations "do not continue to haunt" the judicial magistrate.
"Let this order be made part of the record in this court and also be sent to the concerned court through a Special Messenger of this court to ensure it is made part of the record in the said court as well," it directed.
[Read Order]