Allahabad High Court directs judge to appear in person after noting his "habit of committing impropriety"

The Allahabad High Court last week directed a district judge in Varanasi to appear before it, after noting that he is in the habit of committing impropriety in the discharge of his judicial functions [Asheem Kumar Das v. Manish Viswas & Ors]..Justice Ajit Kumar was hearing a miscellaneous plea against orders passed by the district judge on October 12 and November 1 this year, in a defective revision plea which was time-barred."In the present case, the order sheet reflects that the District Judge, Varanasi is in the habit of committing impropriety in discharge of his judicial function...In the meanwhile until further order of this Court, the orders dated 12.10.2022 and 1.11.2022 passed by the District Judge, Varanasi in Misc. Case No.213 of 2022 shall remain stayed," the Court said..Counsel for petitioner argued that when summons in the case were still not served, the revision-applicant was directed to do pairvi (persuade court).On October 12, the district judge summoned the record of the execution case instead of the record of the suit..On October 17, the revision-applicant filed his reply to the objection and the matter was fixed for hearing on November 17.However, the case was taken up by the judge on November 1, without assigning any special reason for recalling the file and further summoning the executing court's order."How the case has been advanced by two weeks to pass the order is not reflected from the ordersheet. It is well settled that unless and until Section 5 application is allowed neither the appeal nor the revision can be held to be competent one," the High Court said in its order.It further noted that the judge in question was earlier hauled up for committing a similar mistake, but was shown leniency.The Court thus directed the district judge to appear in person with all the original records of the defective case. It also stayed the two orders in question..The petitioner was represented by Advocates Tejas Singh, Ajay Kumar Singh and Ashish Kumar Singh..[Read Order]