Mass discharge of casesspells trouble for judge

Mass discharge of cases has landed one more Kerala judge in trouble.

A.S. Sony, former Judicial Magistrate III of Kollam, has come under investigation for the discharge of 1,923 cases in around six months in 2016.

Earlier, the Kerala High Court had initiated suo motu proceedings for the reversal of acquittal orders issued by R. Rajesh, a former Judicial First Class Magistrate of Kollam, who discharged 1,622 cases. Mr. Rajesh was facing disciplinary action following a report from the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kollam.

The unusually high number of discharge of cases came to light after some senior judicial officers received complaints. On inquiry, it was found that in some cases, the discharge order was issued even without issuing summons.

Incidentally, the High Court had in 2013 issued a memorandum to the judicial officers to “identify frivolous and vexatious cases which have become ineffective and infructuous with passage of time and to take necessary steps to facilitate withdrawal of such cases.”

Later, the committee in 2015 issued another memorandum indicating that the earlier order “has outlived its utility and does not survive for any purpose.”

The two magistrates together discharged 3,545 cases by invoking Section 258 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. While discharging the cases, the magistrates should record the reasons for stopping the proceedings. However, in most of the cases, they recorded the judicial reasoning for the order in one sentence. The act of the magistrates amounted to abuse of process of court, judicial sources pointed out.

At the same time, sources close to one of the judicial officers maintained that petty offences that had been pending for as many as eight years were discharged. In most of these cases, the summons could not be served as the addresses provided by the police were found non-existent.

The decision for discharge was taken in the wake of huge pendency of cases and the non-execution of the warrants by police officers.

Abraham Mathew, a judge of the Kerala High Court, has been assigned the task of reviewing the discharged cases. The authorities have started issuing notices to the parties in the discharged cases.