"Gross impropriety": Supreme Court after former Madras High Court judge delivers judgment after retirement, retains case files for 5 months

The Supreme Court recently set aside a Madras High Court verdict after observing that judge who delivered the verdict had retained the cases files for a period of five months after his retirement and a reasoned order in the case was published on the website of the High Court only after that period [State Through Inspector of Police CBI Chennai vs Naresh Prasad Agarwal and anr]..A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said that a judge retaining cases files for five months after demitting office amounts to gross impropriety."It is obvious that even after the learned Judge demitted the office, he assigned reasons and made the judgment ready. According to us, retaining file of a case for a period of 5 months after demitting the office is an act of gross impropriety on the part of the learned Judge," the bench observed..The Madras High Court in the ruling under challenge had quashed a chargesheet and discharged some accused in a criminal case. While the operative portion of the order was pronounced a month before the judge's retirement retirement, the reasoned portion was not released.Justice T Mathivanan demitted office on May 26, 2017, and the detailed judgment was made available only on October 23 that year.The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) subsequently moved the top court in appeal..The apex court noted that there were five weeks available for the single-judge to release the reasoned judgment."However, the detailed judgment running into more than 250 pages has come out after a lapse of 5 months from the date on which the learned Judge demitted the office. Thus, it is obvious that even after the learned Judge demitted the office, he assigned reasons and made the judgment ready."It refused to hear the case on merits and instead remitted the matter to the High Court for a fresh call."Lord Hewart said hundred years back that "justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done". What has been done in this case is contrary to what Lord Hewart said. We cannot support such acts of impropriety," the Supreme Court said..The appeal was, thus, partly allowed and the judgment under challenge set aside. The matter was remanded to the Madras High Court for a fresh decision on merits..Senior Advocate Shailesh Madiyal with advocates Aakanksha Kaul, Seema Bengani, Suhashini Sen, Rajat Nair and Arvind Kumar Sharma represented the CBI.Senior Advocates Sidharth Luthra and N Muralikumaran with advocates VN Raghupathy, Hari Krishnan, R Gopinath and Manendra Pal Gupta appeared for the accused..[Read Order]