The week that passed saw large scale disciplinary action against members of the judiciary in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

The Rajasthan High Court has recommended the removal of 18 district judges to maintain and uphold the highest ethical and moral levels of the judiciary. A five-member probe panel headed by Justice K.S. Rathore of the Rajasthan High Court had concluded that they were corrupt and incompetent. Sources inform us that the panel has recommended voluntary retirement for the erring Judges. The move to accord these judges benefit of the Voluntary Retirement Scheme is seen by many as being reflective of the lack of will to take concrete action against erring judges. All the named judges are expected to appeal the decision of the panel before the Rajasthan High Court.

In UP, the State Legal Department has passed an order sacking 145 public prosecutors out of the existing 639 public prosecutors. The official reason for their removal was that these sacked lawyers were found to be ‘incompetent’. It is interesting to note that most of the sacked public prosecutors belong to the Brahmin community. This move seems to be politically motivated as it was apparently being done to woo the Dalit voter base. The Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) National Secretary S.C. Mishra, who is credited with uniting the Brahmin- Dalit gap in the last assembly elections, is supposed to be close to the Brahmin and upper caste public prosecutors.

There are 5.3 million cases pending before various District Courts in UP, with the State Government being one of the largest litigant. Pending case statistics are bound to increase with the reduced public prosecutor headcount.

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