The Supreme Court strongly criticised an Allahabad High Court judge for
permitting criminal proceedings in what was "clearly a civil case".
The top court called his reasoning "shocking" and found his
understanding of criminal law to be deeply flawed.
The apex court also directed the Chief Justice of the
High Court to remove Justice Prashant Kumar from all criminal matters and
ordered that such cases should not be assigned to him in the future.
A Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan was hearing
a plea filed by M/S Shikhar Chemicals. The company had approached the Supreme
Court after the high court refused to cancel a criminal case filed against it.
The case was about a financial
transaction between the petitioner company and a supplier. The supplier, who
was the complainant, claimed he had sold thread worth ?52.34 lakh but received
only ?47.75 lakh. He filed a criminal complaint to recover the remaining
amount. The company argued that this was purely a civil dispute and had no
criminal elements. But the high court had dismissed their plea to quash the
case, the news report said.
Justice Prashant Kumar had
written in his order that civil suits take too long and are expensive.
Therefore, he said, the complainant should be allowed to go ahead with criminal
prosecution to recover the remaining money.
“We are shocked by the findings recorded in paragraph 12
of the impugned order,” the Supreme Court said, reacting to this part of the
High Court’s ruling. “The judge has gone to the extent of stating that asking
the complainant to pursue civil remedy would be very unreasonable... and
therefore the complainant may be permitted to institute criminal proceedings
for recovery.”
The apex court said that this view was completely
unacceptable and decided to intervene without even issuing a notice.
The Supreme Court did not stop at
setting aside the high court's order. “We request the Hon’ble Chief Justice of
the High Court to assign this matter to any other judge,” the Bench said. “We
further request the Chief Justice to immediately withdraw the present
determination of the concerned judge.”
The court added that Justice Kumar should no longer
handle criminal matters even if he is made to sit alone in future. “In any view
of the matter, the concerned judge shall not be assigned any criminal
determination till he demits office,” the Supreme Court said. “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 Supreme Court also sent the case back to the
high court to be heard again by a different judge. The top court made it clear
that giving a criminal twist to civil disputes, just because civil cases take
longer, is not acceptable in law.