‘Judges Should Not Be On Facebook, Must Live Like Hermits’: Supreme Court

New Delhi:

Judges ought to keep away from utilizing social media and chorus from expressing their opinions about judgments on-line, the Supreme Courtroom has stated, observing that they need to reside like a hermit and work like a horse. Stating that there is no such thing as a place for showiness within the judiciary, the court docket stated, “Judicial officers shouldn’t go to Fb. They need to not touch upon judgments as a result of tomorrow if the judgment is cited, decide has already expressed somehow.”

A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and N Kotiswar Singh made the oral remarks whereas listening to a case on the dismissal of two girls judicial officers – Aditi Kumar Sharma and Sarita Chaudhary – by the Madhya Pradesh Excessive Courtroom.

“It (social media) is an open platform. It’s important to reside life a hermit, work like a horse. A lot sacrifice judicial officers need to do. They need to not go into Fb in any respect,” the court docket noticed.

Echoing the court docket’s views, senior advocate R Basant – who appeared for one of many terminated girl judges – stated no decide or judicial officer ought to submit something associated to judicial work on Fb.

The remarks adopted a submission by senior advocate Gaurav Agarwal – who’s an amicus curiae or an adviser to the court docket – that raised complaints towards the terminated decide. In his submission, he had flagged a Fb submit by the decide.

The Supreme Courtroom had taken cognisance of the dismissal of six girls civil judges on a efficiency foundation on November 11, 2023. On August 1, a full court docket of the Madhya Pradesh Excessive Courtroom determined to reinstate 4 of them – Jyoti Varkade, Sushri Sonakshi Joshi, Sushri Priya Sharma, and Rachna Atulkar Joshi – on sure phrases.

The opposite two judges had been neglected of the train, which is being thought-about by the Supreme Courtroom.

A report by the Excessive Courtroom had flagged a drop in Aditi Sharma’s efficiency from excellent and good rankings to common and poor since 2019-20, stating that her disposal charge was beneath 200 in 2022. She, nevertheless, advised the excessive court docket that she suffered a miscarriage in 2021, after which her brother was identified with most cancers.

The court docket then famous {that a} quantitative evaluation of the judges’ work couldn’t be carried out attributable to Covid, regardless of which they had been terminated, and issued notices to the excessive court docket registry and the judicial officers who had not approached it towards the termination.