New Delhi: The supreme court has defined that lust is a different kind of gratification while dismissing a petition of a Maharastra-based judicial magistrate dismissed from service for passing orders in favour of a lady lawyer with whom he had an affair.
“In this case, the officer decided the cases because of his proximate relationship with a lady lawyer and not because the law required him to do so. This is also gratification of a different kind,” the bench said, explaining that gratification can be of various types.
“It can be gratification of money, gratification of power, gratification of lust etc,” it said.
A Maharashtra-based judicial magistrate had appealed the apex court challenging the Mumbai high court order which upheld his dismissal from service in 2004 for he allegedly passed orders in favour of the clients of a lady lawyer he had a ‘proximate releationship’.
A division bench comprising of justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose, while dismissing the plea, viewed that impeccable integrity should be reflected both in the public and personal life of a judge.
If a judicial officer decides a matter for any “extraneous reasons”, he is not performing his duty in accordance with law, the bench observed.
“One who stands in judgments over others should be incorruptible. That is the high standard which is expected of judges,” it said in its verdict.
“A judge is judged not only by his quality of judgments but also by the quality and purity of his character,” the apex court said.
“It is, therefore, necessary that judicial officers should possess the sterling quality of integrity,” it said.
Observing that the petitioner did not live up to the “expectations of integrity, behaviour and probity” and no leniency can be shown to him, the bench ordered, “Hence, we find no merit in the appeal, which is accordingly dismissed.” .
