Punjab & Haryana High Court awards ₹1 lakh costs to judicial officer, drops contempt proceedings

The Punjab & Haryana High Court on Monday awarded costs of ₹1 lakh to a judicial officer who faced contempt proceedings for six years as a result of the deliberate concealment of facts by an accused in a case. [Court on its own motion v. Yogesh Chaudhary].Justice Arvind Singh Sangwan dropped proceedings against then Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Rewari Yogesh Chaudhary and expunged adverse remarks made by the High Court against him while initiating suo motu contempt proceedings."Before taking the suo motu action, no opportunity of hearing was granted to the respondent and straightway some adverse remarks were also passed while initiating the proceedings," the order recorded. The District Legal Services Authority, Rewari was thus asked to pay ₹1 lakh to the respondent towards litigation expenses..In 2016, the High Court, initiated contempt proceedings against the CJM while finding that an order of conviction for the offence of cheating was passed by him, despite a stay order granted by the High Court."In the light of this intentional gross misconduct and total arrogance by then learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Rewari as well as his utter disrespect and disregard to judicial orders of Superior Court entails not only initiation of contempt of Court proceedings as well as separate administrative action against him," the High Court's 2016 order read..The respondent judge argued that the contempt proceedings were initiated without giving an opportunity of hearing or show cause notice to him. It was also highlighted that there was no complaint pending against him, and that he had performed his duty as a judge with due diligence as a result of which he had good Annual Confidential Records (ACRs). .Justice Sangwan took note of the fact that the stay order was not uploaded on the High Court's website until a week later. Thus, the CJM had every reason to believe that there was no extension of stay, since the accused did not file an affidavit stating that the stay was extended.Additionally, it was recorded that the accused deliberately concealed that his contempt petition was earlier dismissed by the High Court with costs ₹10,000 costs for being "frivolous", and a Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court was also dismissed. .The single-judge opined that had an opportunity been granted to the respondent judge, he could have very well explained the dismissal of contempt proceedings initiated by the accused, resulting in avoiding the unnecessary suo motu action. "Even otherwise, nothing has come on record that the respondent, in any manner, is prejudiced against the accused Purshottam Dass and rather has acted, in accordance with law and has conducted the trial by adopting a due procedure of law," the order said. .With these observations, the contempt proceedings were dropped. .Advocate Supriya Garg appeared for the respondent. .[Read Order]