This story is from November 9, 2019

HC sets aside doubts of single judge on court staff

HC sets aside doubts of single judge on court staff
A string of serious doubts raised by a judge of Madras high court regarding the manner in which court staff are recruited, their qualifications and lapses in discharge of their duties, has been set aside by a division bench of the court.
Pointing out that the chief justice is the administrative head of the state judiciary, the bench of Justice T S Sivagnanam and Justice R Tharani said, “therefore, any direction or observation issued by any court cannot impinge upon to exercise jurisdiction of the chief justice.”
While hearing a service case in June this year, a single judge was irked as the court suffered electricity disruption for a few minutes.
As it interrupted the court proceedings, more so because there was no emergency lamp available in court hall, the single judge summoned the registrar (administration) of Madurai bench of the high court, admonished him and impleaded him as a party.
The judge then pulled up court employees for negligence and rued that they were not discharging their duties effectively. He sought to know if genuineness of their academic qualifications and age proof are verified, and wondered if there was a supervisory lapse in maintaining cleanliness. He also wanted to know if the vigilance department kept a tab on lapses, negligence, dereliction of duty and corrupt activities of employees.
Aggrieved, the registrar (administration) filed the present appeal before a bench. Allowing the appeal, the bench of Justice Sivagnanam and Justice Tharani observed that the observations in the order of the single judge largely touched upon the administration of the institution and the queries directly touched upon administrative affairs of the high court. The judges observed that the procedure for recruitment has been clearly set out by the court registry, and added, “we are fully satisfied with the robust mechanism in place.” The judges also observed that it is true that there is room for improvement on all issues, that may not be a sole reason to hold that the present procedure is not effective.
“We are conscious of the fact that every one of us, judges and advocates is deeply interested in the welfare of the institution to function in an excellent manner. Nevertheless, there is a self-imposed restriction, to which we can exercise our jurisdiction in such matters,” they said. The judges observed, “we are aware that the emergency lamps have been provided for the court halls and the chambers for the judges and for the registrars and they are all effectively functioning and cited that power failure may be due to several causes.” Holding that the order of the single judge was clearly outside the scope of the petition before him, and that his order intruded into the administrative process adopted by the high court headed by the chief justice, the judges set aside his order.
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