This order does not disturb the convictions or sentences pronounced on 20 January 2024, does not decide the pending appeal against conviction, and does not decide the suspension-of-sentence application on its merits: it decides only the challenge to the adverse remarks and directions against the judicial officer.
- Case
- In Re: XXX, A Judicial Officer in the District Judge Cadre of Rajasthan Judicial Services
- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Decision
- Citation
- 2026 INSC 1188
- Bench
- Sandeep Mehta; Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya
- Judgment by
- Sandeep Mehta
- Case numbers
- SLP (Crl.) No. 13501/2025
- Outcome
- Appeal allowed: the strictures in paragraphs 9, 10 and 11 of the Rajasthan High Court order dated 1 May 2025 and its directions in paragraphs 17 and 18 are expunged and set aside.
Strictures expunged; appeal allowed
The Supreme Court has expunged adverse remarks recorded by the Rajasthan High Court against a judicial officer of the District Judge cadre of the Rajasthan Judicial Services, holding that the remarks were uncalled for and avoidable. A bench of Justices Sandeep Mehta and Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya allowed the officer's appeal and set aside the directions that had followed from the remarks.
The Court's core objection was procedural: the disparaging remarks and strictures had been recorded on the judicial side without affording the officer an opportunity to show cause or place an explanation on record, and so suffered from non-adherence to the principles of natural justice. The judgment states that the remarks in paragraphs 9, 10 and 11 of the High Court's order dated 1 May 2025, together with the directions in paragraphs 17 and 18 of that order, cannot be sustained and are expunged and set aside.
Two trials from one FIR, decided on the same day
The matter arose from FIR No. 56/2019 lodged at Police Station Malsisar, District Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, for offences under Section 376-D of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Sections 3 and 4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. One accused was a child in conflict with law; the judgment refers to that accused only as S, and this article does the same.
The child was arrested on 6 October 2021 and produced before the Juvenile Justice Board, which conducted a preliminary assessment under Section 15(1) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, recording the child as 16 years, 9 months and 28 days old on the date of the incident. The Board considered the child fit to be tried as an adult and, under Section 18(3) of the 2015 Act, transferred the case to the Court of the Special Judge, POCSO Act Cases, Jhunjhunu, where it was registered as Sessions Case No. 12/2022.
Because Section 23 of the 2015 Act bars joint proceedings of a child in conflict with law and an adult accused, the adult co-accused was tried separately in Sessions Case No. 65/2019, and the two matters required distinct judgments. The appellant judicial officer pronounced separate judgments in both cases on 20 January 2024, convicting both accused of the charges found proved and sentencing each to 20 years' rigorous imprisonment. In rendering those judgments, some overlapping extracts of evidence and numerical details from one trial were inadvertently incorporated into the judgment of the other.
High Court rejects suspension plea and records adverse remarks
The child in conflict with law appealed against conviction in S.B. Criminal Appeal No. 426/2024 before the High Court, along with S.B. Criminal Misc. Suspension of Sentence Application No. 1456/2024. By order dated 1 May 2025, a Single Judge rejected the suspension application after discussing the merits of the case.
In that order, the Single Judge took the view that negligence had been committed by the presiding officer in rendering the judgment in the child's case. The order said the judge had used a 'cut, copy and paste' methodology, that the judgment had in all probability been scripted by the stenographer or clerk, and that it had been signed without being read and corrected so that irrelevant paragraphs relating to the adult accused's trial could be struck out. The order recorded adverse remarks in paragraphs 8, 9, 10 and 11 and gave two directions: paragraph 17 directed that a copy of the order be sent to the Judge in-charge of the Rajasthan Judicial Academy to impart training to the presiding officer in judgment writing, and paragraph 18 directed the Registrar General to make a copy of the order part of the officer's annual confidential report for 2024, after obtaining the officer's comments.
Aggrieved by those adverse observations and strictures, the judicial officer approached the Supreme Court by way of appeal with special leave, seeking expungement of the remarks.
The officer's explanation: interwoven trials, one stenographer on leave
Before the Supreme Court, the officer explained that the facts of the two cases were intricately intermingled and interwoven, with almost the same witnesses and substantive evidence in both. The officer also pointed to the working conditions of the Special Court: the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act requires time-bound, expeditious disposal, while the Special Court had limited resources.
The sole stenographer provided for the Special Court had proceeded on leave, so the officer was constrained to dictate part of the judgment directly to the Lower Division Clerk on the computer, while the major remaining portion was dictated to the stenographer upon return. The errors, including incorrect serial numbers of prosecution witnesses, were explained as bona fide typographical errors that neither altered nor affected the outcome or substance of the judgment.
Article 227 as guardianship, not castigation
The Court located the issue in Article 227 of the Constitution, under which High Courts exercise superintendence over courts within their jurisdiction. That duty, the judgment says, must be exercised in a manner that guides, strengthens and nurtures the district judiciary, and the present case was one in which supervisory power appeared to have been exercised in a manner that could have been avoided by exercising forgiveness and magnanimity.
The judgment reiterates the settled distinction between criticism of an erroneous judicial order and adverse comments on the personal conduct or calibre of a judicial officer. It relies on Kaushal Singh v. State of Rajasthan, which restated that High Courts should ordinarily refrain from passing strictures against judicial officers while deciding matters on the judicial side, drawing on In Re: 'K', A Judicial Officer and Sonu Agnihotri v. Chandra Shekhar. Concerns about an officer's conduct, the Court said, may appropriately be brought to the notice of the Chief Justice on the administrative side, where the officer would have an opportunity to explain.
The Court added that adverse remarks may destroy a judicial officer's career and have a chilling effect on the entire district judiciary, and that even if the High Court thought an error had occurred, it ought not to have recorded adverse observations without first affording the officer an opportunity to explain, as required by audi alteram partem. Where a course of action is warranted, the judgment in Shuvendu Saha v. State of West Bengal points to recording observations on the merits or quality of the judgment in a remark slip placed before the administrative Judge or the Chief Justice for follow-up on the administrative side.
What the Court ordered
As a consequence, the strictures and adverse remarks in paragraphs 9, 10 and 11 of the impugned order, and the directions in paragraphs 17 and 18 regarding training and placement in the officer's annual confidential report, are expunged and set aside, and the appeal is allowed accordingly. A copy of the Supreme Court's order is to be transmitted by its Registry to the Registrar General of the High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan, for being placed before the Chief Justice of that High Court.
The order is confined to the remarks and directions: it does not revisit the convictions or sentences of 20 January 2024, and it does not decide the appeal against conviction or the suspension application on their merits.
BANTHRY ANALYSISFor law students: why the route matters as much as the remark
This judgment is a useful companion to the law on strictures because it separates three questions students often merge: whether a judgment contains an error, whether the judge deserves personal criticism for it, and which forum may record that criticism. An error in a judgment can be corrected in appeal; personal strictures on the judicial side, recorded without hearing the officer, are a different act with career consequences, and that is why the Court treats them as unsustainable without audi alteram partem.
Note also the Court's preferred alternative, drawn from Shuvendu Saha: a remark slip on the administrative side, where the officer can explain. For examination answers, the sequence to reproduce is therefore: superintendence under Article 227 as guardianship, criticism of the order distinguished from criticism of the officer, hearing before strictures, and the administrative-side route for conduct concerns.
READING PROMPTSQuestions for a closer reading
- Why did the Supreme Court hold that the High Court's remarks could not stand, and what procedural step was missing before they were recorded?
- What explanation did the judicial officer give for the overlapping material in the two judgments, and why did the Court accept that it showed bona fide error rather than dereliction?
- What does the judgment say is the proper route for concerns about a judicial officer's conduct, instead of strictures on the judicial side?
