Supreme Court to re-hear case involving Allahabad High Court Justice Prashant Kumar

The Supreme Court has re-listed a case in which it recently came down heavily on Justice Prashant Kumar of Allahabad High Court for his verdict that criminal prosecution could be used as an alternative means to recover money in civil disputes.

In a drastic direction issued on August 4, the Bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan had urged the High Court Chief Justice to strip Justice Kumar of criminal roster till his retirement and make him sit in a Division Bench with a seasoned senior judge of the High Court.

"We further direct that the concerned judge shall not be assigned any criminal determination, till he demits office. If at all at some point of time, he is to be made to sit as a single judge, he shall not be assigned any criminal determination," the Court had ordered.

As per the Supreme Court website, the matter is now relisted for hearing on Friday. The matter had been disposed of earlier.

According to media reports, judges of the Supreme Court have taken exception to the direction issued by the Bench led by Justice Pardiwala.

The Bench had made strong remarks about the High Court judge’s understanding of criminal law.

“We are shocked by the findings recorded in paragraph 12 of the impugned order. The judge has gone to the extent of stating that asking the complainant to pursue civil remedy would be very unreasonable as civil suits take a long time, and therefore the complainant may be permitted to institute criminal proceedings for recovery,” it had noted.

The Supreme Court had passed the order on a plea challenging the High Court’s order dismissing an application filed by one M/S Shikhar Chemicals (petitioner) seeking to quash criminal proceedings arising out of a commercial transaction.

The respondent in the case had supplied thread worth ₹52,34,385 to the petitioner-firm, of which ₹47,75,000 was allegedly paid. A complaint was filed before the magistrate claiming that the balance amount remained unpaid.

The petitioner moved the High Court to quash the proceedings, contending that the dispute was purely civil in nature and had been improperly given a criminal colour. However, the High Court dismissed the plea.

In his order dated May 5, Justice Kumar observed that requiring the complainant to pursue a civil suit would be “very unreasonable” as such suits take years to conclude and, therefore, criminal prosecution was justified.

On August 4, the Supreme Court described this reasoning as untenable. The order passed by the High Court was accordingly set aside, and the matter was remanded for fresh consideration by a different judge.

Pertinently, on August 4, the High Court also ordered a temporary change to the roster as per which Justice Kumar is now sitting with Justice MC Tripathi on August 7 and 8 to hear land acquisition, development authorities writs and environment matters.

Justice Dinesh Pathak is currently hearing the criminal matters earlier assigned to Justice Kumar.