The Supreme Court has removed harsh remarks made by the Rajasthan High Court against a woman judicial officer of the District Judge cadre. It found they were recorded without giving her a chance to explain. A bench of Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya allowed her appeal on November 2, 2026.
Background
The matter arose from a 2019 FIR at Police Station Malsisar, Jhunjhunu, under Section 376-D of the IPC and the POCSO Act. One accused was a child in conflict with law who had been sent for trial as an adult, so the law required separate trials. The officer delivered two judgments on January 20, 2024. Some overlapping evidence details from one trial appeared in the other judgment.
While rejecting a suspension of sentence plea on May 1, 2025, a single judge of the High Court called the approach “cut, copy and paste”. The judge suggested the stenographer had written the judgment and recorded adverse remarks. He also ordered judgment-writing training and directed that the order go into her Annual Confidential Report for 2024.
Before the Supreme Court, she said the evidence and witnesses in both cases were largely the same. The Special Court’s only stenographer was on leave, so part of the judgment was dictated to a clerk on the computer. She described the mistakes as typographical errors that did not change the outcome.
The bench said the remarks were uncalled for and avoidable, noting:
“Ex facie, we feel that the adverse observations and the strictures recorded by the High Court against the appellant-Judicial Officer were uncalled for and avoidable. These disparaging remarks and the strictures were recorded on the judicial side, without affording an opportunity to the appellant-Judicial Officer to show cause or to place her explanation on record before such observations and strictures were made, and hence, suffer from the vice of non-adherence to the principles of natural justice.”
It also warned of the wider impact:
“Such adverse remarks may have the deleterious effect of destroying the Judicial Officer’s career and may also have a chilling effect on the entire district judiciary. In this background, we are unable to subscribe to the view taken by the High Court that the appellant-Judicial Officer was acting in dereliction of her duties while rendering the judgment dated 20th January, 2024.”
Relying on Kaushal Singh v. State of Rajasthan and Shuvendu Saha v. State of West Bengal, the Court said concerns about a judge’s work should ordinarily be raised on the administrative side through a remark slip placed before the Chief Justice.
The Court expunged and set aside the remarks in paragraphs 9, 10 and 11 of the High Court order, along with the directions in paragraphs 17 and 18 on training and the ACR entry.
The appeal was allowed, and a copy of the order was directed to be sent to the Registrar General of the Rajasthan High Court for placing before the Chief Justice.
