Patna HC quashes Justrice Kumar's 'controversial' order

The Patna High Court on Monday quashed its judge Rakesh Kumar's last week's order, comprising stinging observations over alleged corruption in judiciary, but restored his judicial work.

Making stinging observation over the alleged corruption in judiciary, Justice Kumar had last week ordered a CBI probe and an enquiry by the Patna district judge into how a former IAS officer whom he had denied anticipatory bail in a corruption case last year was granted regular bail by a trial court.

A full bench of the high court, headed by Chief Justice A P Shahi, set aside Justice Kumar's order, terming it as an instance of judicial and administrative overreach and a complete nullity".

The bench declared the order "to be coram non judice.

The high court's full bench, also comprising justices Anjana Mishra and Anil Kumar Upadhyay, however, restored judicial work to Justice Kumar that he had been stripped of the day he passed his order questioning the grant of regular bail to the former IAS officer by the trial court.

Justice Kumar was divested of his judicial work by court administration on the day he passed the order, which was suspended very next day by a special 11-judge bench.

The development came a day after Justice Kumar and Chief Justice A P Sahi reportedly met Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on Sunday.

Justice Kumar had passed August 28 order, taking suo motu cognizance of the bail granted by a lower court to the retired IAS officer in a corruption case.

In his order, Justice Kumar had also directed Patna district judge, to inquire and submit his report as to how the former bureaucrat K P Ramaiah was granted bail.

The order had also asked the CBI to investigate the alleged corruption in the civil court here, flagged in a sting operation conducted by a private news channel.

Justice Kumar had also directed that copies of his order be sent to the CJI, the apex court collegium of judges and the Prime Minister's Office besides the Union Law Ministry.

Setting aside Justice Kumar's order on Monday, the high court's full bench headed by Chief Justice Shahi said, "A wrong order requires setting aside if it has travelled beyond the objective boundaries and has far-reaching consequences in setting a trend which no law recognizes.

The passing of such an order has the inherent danger of creating uncertainty and a feeling that all things can be set right on exercise of authority by a judge even though he may not have legal power to do so, the court said.

We may only observe that there are regrettable limits and compulsory restraints that control jurisdiction. The jurisdiction to summon a file and then to pass strictures, comments and issuing administrative directions were all totally outside the scope of the authority of the learned judge, the court added.

Terming Justice Kumar's order as "absolutely unsustainable", the high court's full bench said, "It suffers from a dual incompetence of exercise of administrative as well as judicial authority."