New Delhi:

The Supreme Court has taken the Madhya Pradesh High Court to task while hearing a case about woman judges sacked in Madhya Pradesh. While it was alleged that all showed poor performance, one of them was pregnant and suffered a miscarriage in the period in which she was judged. 

“I hope such criteria is also imposed on male judges. I have no hesitation in saying this,” remarked Justice BV Nagarathna, pulling up the High Court for its apathy. 

“The lady, she has got pregnant and she had miscarriage. The mental and physical trauma of a lady who has undergone a miscarriage. What is this? I wish men have menstruation. Then they will know what it is,” added Justice Nagarathna, who was part of the two-judge bench that heard the matter on Tuesday.

The Supreme Court had taken up the matter on its own in November last year and sought clarification from the high court on the criteria for the termination.

The termination orders for the women judges, who were on probation, were passed in June 2023 by the state law department on the advice of the high court. The performance rating had taken into account the number of cases they had disposed of. 

This August, a full court had a rethink and decided to reinstate four of the judges. But Aditi Kumar Sharma was not on the list.

In a report, the high court said her performance dropped from “very good” and “good” ratings during 2019-20 to “average” and “poor” in the subsequent years.

Pointing out that she was on maternity and child care leave when she had her miscarriage, Ms Sharma, in her note to the High Court, said counting it as part of her performance would be a grave injustice. Also, the termination was a violation of her fundamental right to equality and right to life and personal liberty.

“It is a settled law that maternity and child care leave is a fundamental right of a woman and also the infant, therefore, evaluation of the applicant’s performance for the probation period on the basis of the leave taken by her as part of maternity and child care is grossly violative of her fundamental rights,” her petition read.

The judge had also argued that she was sacked without following any due process of law despite four years of unblemished service record.

New Delhi:

Supreme Court Judge BV Nagarathna has cautioned against instances of governors sitting indefinitely on bills passed by elected legislatures, referring to the case involving the Punjab Governor.

In her keynote address at the inaugural session of the fifth edition of Courts and the Constitution Conference, held at the NALSAR University of Law here on Saturday, Justice Nagarathna spoke about the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly case as another instance of gubernatorial overreach, where the governor lacked sufficient material to declare the floor test.

“This is not a healthy trend under the Constitution to bring the actions or omissions of the Governor of a state for consideration before constitutional courts,” she said.

“I think I must appeal that the office of a governor, though it is called a gubernatorial post, the governor’s post is a serious constitutional post, the governors must discharge their duties under the constitution in accordance with the Constitution so that this kind of litigation before the law courts is reduced,” Justice Nagarathna added.

She said it was quite embarrassing for the governors to be told to do or not to do a thing.

So, a time has come where they would be now told to discharge their duties as per the Constitution, she said.

Justice Nagarthna’s comments came days after a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud expressed “serious concern” over the conduct of Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi for his refusal to reinduct DMK leader K Ponmudi as a minister in the state cabinet.

Justice Nagarathna also spoke on her dissent on the demonetisation case.

She said she had to dissent against the move by the central government as in 2016, when the decision was announced, the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes comprised 86 per cent of the total currency notes in circulation, and 98 per cent of it came back after they were banned.

In October 2016, the Indian government demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes, purportedly in a blow against the black money.

“I thought it was a way of converting money into white money by this demonetisation because firstly, 86 per cent of the currency was demonetised and 98 per cent of the currency came back and became white money. All the unaccounted money went back to the bank.

“Therefore, I thought it was a good way of getting unaccounted cash accounted. Therefore, this common man’s predicament really stirred me. Therefore, I had to dissent,” the judge said.

The conference heard addresses from judges of the Supreme Courts of Nepal and Pakistan Justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Syed Mansoor Ali Shah.

Telangana High Court Chief Justice Alok Aradh and NALSAR Chancellor Justice S Ravindra Bhat also spoke at the conference, a press release from NALSAR said. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Hyderabad:

Supreme Court Judge BV Nagarathna on Saturday cautioned against instances of governors sitting indefinitely on bills passed by elected legislatures, referring to the case involving the Punjab Governor.

In her keynote address at the inaugural session of the fifth edition of Courts and the Constitution Conference, held at the NALSAR University of Law here, Justice Nagarathna spoke about the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly case as another instance of gubernatorial overreach, where the governor lacked sufficient material to declare the floor test.

“This is not a healthy trend under the Constitution to bring the actions or omissions of the Governor of a state for consideration before constitutional courts,” she said.

“I think I must appeal that the office of a governor, though it is called a gubernatorial post, the governor’s post is a serious constitutional post, the governors must discharge their duties under the constitution in accordance to with the Constitution so that this kind of litigation before the law courts is reduced,” Justice Nagarathna added.

She said that it is quite embarrassing for the governors to be told to do or not to do a thing.

So, a time has come where they would be now told to discharge their duties as per the Constitution, she said.

Justice Nagarthna’s comments came days after a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud expressed “serious concern” over the conduct of Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi for his refusal to reinduct DMK leader K Ponmudi as a minister in the state cabinet.

Justice Nagarathna also spoke on her dissent on the demonetisation case.

She said she had to dissent against the move by the central government as in 2016, when the decision was announced, the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes comprised 86 per cent of the total currency notes in circulation, and 98 per cent of it came back after they were banned.

In October 2016, the Indian government demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes, purportedly in a blow against the black money.

“I thought it was a way of converting money into white money by this demonetisation because firstly, 86 per cent of the currency was demonetised and 98 per cent of the currency came back and became white money. All the uncounted money went back to the bank.

“Therefore, I thought it was a good way of getting unaccounted for cash accounted. Therefore, this common man’s predicament really stirred me. Therefore, I had to dissent,” the judge said.

The conference heard addresses from judges of the Supreme Courts of Nepal and Pakistan Justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Syed Mansoor Ali Shah.

Telangana High Court chief Justice Alok Aradh and NALSAR Chancellor Justice S Ravindra Bhat also spoke at the conference, a press release from NALSAR said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)