Supreme Court Informed Of Madhya Pradesh High Court's Refusal To Reconsider Dismissal Of 6 Women Judges

In a suo motu writ petition registered wrt simultaneous termination of services of 6 female civil judges in Madhya Pradesh, the Supreme Court was recently apprised that the Administrative Committee of the State High Court has resolved to not re-consider its earlier decision.

Taking note, the Bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and AG Masih gave time to the parties to file counter/rejoinder by next date, as well as to the High Court for filing documents pertaining to the judicial officers.

To recap, the case relates to 6 female judges, appointed in Judicial Services of the State of Madhya Pradesh, who were terminated from service last year. Aggrieved, three of them had written to the top Court on September 2, 2023, alleging that the termination was primarily on account of their disposal not being upto the standards set.

The officers had claimed that their services had been terminated in the initial stage of their career, despite the fact that quantitative assessment of their work could not place due to considerable lapse of time on account of outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic.

Notice in the petition was issued on January 12, considering that suo motu cognizance of the matter had already been taken by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud. As four officers were represented in some or the other capacity, response was sought from the remaining two officers as well as Registrar General of MP High Court.

Now, the Bench having been informed that MP High Court is not inclined to consider reinstatement of the officers, the case shall be heard on merits.

Senior Advocate Gaurav Agarwal is acting as Amicus Curiae in the matter.

Appearance: Senior Advocates R Basant & Vivek K Tankha; Advocates Tanvi Dubey, Pardeep Gupta, Parinav Gupta, Mansi Gupta, Varun Tankha, Prasang Sharma, Vipul Tiwari, Inder Dev Singh, Aakash Nandolia, Sagun Srivastava, Nisha Pandey, Akshay Sahai, LC Patne, Raghav Pandey, Gauri Pandey, Gulab Sharma, and Hitesh Sharma; AoRs Arjun Garg (for MP High Court), Sumeer Sodhi, Rekha Pandey, Charu Mathur & Dr. Vipin Gupta

Case Title: IN RE: TERMINATION OF CIVIL JUDGE, CLASS-II (JR. DIVISION) MADHYA PRADESH STATE JUDICIAL SERVICE, SMW(C) No. 2/2023