[BREAKING] Patna High Court recalls decision to suspend POCSO judge after Supreme Court intervention

Following the Supreme Court's intervention, the Patna High Court has dropped proceedings against a district judge from Bihar who had been placed under suspension with effect from February this year. [Shashi Kant Rai v. High Court of Judicature at Patna & Anr].Shashi Kant Rai, an Additional Sessions Judge from Araria in Bihar, had moved the apex court challenging a suspension order issued and recently renewed by the High Court..The order released today and signed by the Registrar General of the High Court states that the High Court had decided to drop departmental proceedings against the Special Judge - POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) after the Supreme Court's order passed earlier this week..On Monday, a Bench of Justices UU Lalit and S Ravindra Bhat had stated that it would be in the best interests of everyone involved if the disciplinary proceedings against the judge from Araria, Bihar were dropped, especially since it may send a negative message to other judges as well."Our sincere advice is drop everything. If you don't want to, we'll go threadbare into it. Unless you're alleging corruption, there has to be something glaring. He's only following up on his orders, extremely unfair on him...It sends a bad message to others, who are otherwise efficient," the Bench had orally remarked."There shouldn't be over zealousness to punish," Justice Bhat had added..Senior Advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for the petitioner had submitted that the judge was willing to submit a statement to the High Court rebutting the charges against him..In his plea before the Supreme Court, the judge claimed that action was taken against him only for questioning the new evaluation system in place for promotions in the district judiciary.The petitioner-judge had, after rounds of non-consideration for promotion as civil judge (senior division), written to the High Court to consider restoring seniority as a basis for such elevations."The Hon’ble High Court, merely for questioning the process of evaluation of judgements, straightaway issued show cause notice to the Petitioner and later suspended him without giving any reasons thereby failing in its constitutional obligation to guide and protect the judicial officers," it is contended.Interestingly, the petitioner had, in November 2021, convicted and sentenced a man to life imprisonment for sexual assault of a minor after having heard the case for one day.In his plea before the top court, Rai alleged that he had received death threats after he passed that order.It was also pointed out that the suspension order and pending disciplinary proceedings against him did not record any reasons and has led to mental pain "as he stands condemned for an action that otherwise garnered the praise of the State.".One of the contributing factors to his suspension was the fact that he issued a death sentence after hearing a case for four days. During a previous hearing, the apex court had observed in this context,"We have been trying to devise methods to assess mitigating factors on death sentence and they have to see the prison records. Here, this judge has passed death sentence in 4 days."