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On Wednesday, the Bombay High Court has dismissed the PIL filed by advocate Ulhas Naik challenging the elevation of Justice SK Shinde. The court has imposed a cost of Rs. 1 lakh for levelling reckless allegation against the judge.
The bench consisted of Justice RM Borde and Justice RG Ketkar heard the matter. The bench has contended that the said advocate has intentionally made an incorrect statement on oath that Justice Shinde, is ineligible for being appointed as a judge of the high court as he had been compulsorily retired while functioning as a district judge.
Justice Shinde was the Chief Public Prosecutor before becoming district judge. The court has verified all the original documents related to his resignation for the post of judge, City Civil Court and Additional Sessions Judge, Bombay, to the Registrar General, High Court at Bombay on August 1, 2006.
The court said according to the report submitted by the Registry there were no dues payable by Justice Shinde nor there were any departmental proceedings against him. The High court has recommended to the Government of Maharashtra to accept the letter of resignation and in pursuance of such recommendation the government on September 2006, accepted the resignation tendered by the Justice Shinde.
During the pendency of the PIL, the court observed that “the petitioner first filed a notice of motion seeking liberty to file a fresh PIL, then, the petitioner said how he was not aware exactly about the “public perception”, in the view of compulsory retirement of the Justice Shinde.
The Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh has informed the court about the scrupulous following of Memorandum of Procedures prescribing Procedures for his appointment. Finally dismissing the PIL filed by the advocate, the court said;” “The PIL is a weapon which is to be used with great care and circumspection and the judiciary has to be extremely careful to see that behind the beautiful veil of public interest an ugly private malice, vested interest and/ or publicity seeker is not lurking. It is to be used as an effective weapon in the armoury of law for delivering social justice to the citizens. We are compelled to record that while scrutinizing the challenge raised before us in the form of PIL, there is a lurking and ugly private malice, vested interest and/or publicity seeker tendency.”
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