Except In 'Grave' Cases, UP Judicial Officers Need District Judge's Assent To File FIRs In Personal Capacity, Allahabad HC Clarifies

In all other matters, they must first take the concerned District Judge into confidence and obtain their assent before becoming the first informant.

This clarification came through a modification of Paragraph 29 of the Court's earlier judgment in Manoj Kumar Gupta And 2 Others vs. State Of U.P. And 3 Others 2024 LiveLaw (AB) 339.

While allowing a review application filed by the High Court through its Registrar General, a Division Bench of Justice Salil Kumar Rai and Justice Sandeep Jain noted an 'apparent contradiction' between Paragraphs 27 and 29 of the earlier judgment.

Briefly put, the second part of Paragraph 27 had allowed Judicial Officers to file FIRs in non-heinous matters "with the approval of their District Judge", whereas Paragraph 29 imposed a blanket restriction permitting such FIRs only in serious and heinous offences, without referencing the conditional mechanism stated earlier.

The Court observed:

"There is an apparent contradiction between the observations made in the second part of Paragraph No.27 and the observations made in Paragraph No. 29 of the judgment & order dated 21.5.2024".

It accepted the argument advanced by Senior Advocate Sameer Sharma, assisted by Advocate Ashish Mishra, on behalf of the Applicant, that the language of Paragraph 29 could be interpreted as completely restraining Judicial Officers from lodging FIRs in their personal capacity in all but the most serious cases.

This restriction, the counsels argued, would violate the rights of the Judicial Officers under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Accepting the submissions and to resolve this inconsistency, the Court recalled and modified Paragraph 29 to align it with the directive given in Paragraph 27 of the earlier judgment.

The revised direction reads:

"The Registrar General shall circulate the judgment & order dated 21.5.2024 passed by this Court in Criminal Misc.Writ Petition No.13460 of 2023 to all sessions divisions of the State of U.P., apprising the District Judges and Judicial Officers not to permit any registration of First Information Report by any judicial officers except in the matter of grave and severe nature like murder, suicide, rape or other sexual offences, dowry death, dacoity and in rest of the remaining cases, if any, judicial officer or Judge wants to become the first informant in his personal capacity in any F.I.R., he must take his concerned District Judge into confidence and after having the assent from the District Judge, he can become an informant of any F.I.R”.

Read more about the judgment in review here : 'Unbecoming Of A Judge; He Auctioned His Dignity': Allahabad HC Quashes 'False' FIR Lodged By A CJM Against Govt Officials

It may be noted that in this matter, while quashing an FIR lodged by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Banda, against the serving officials of the state's Electricity Department, the Allahabad High Court had made strong remarks about the Judicial officer's conduct.

A bench of Justice Rahul Chaturvedi and Justice Mohd. Azhar Husain Idrisi had observed that CJM Banda Bhagwan Das Gupta levelled "wild and tailored" allegations of fraud, cheating, fabrication of documents, and extortion of money against the officials, "to teach a bitter lesson" to them and to make them understand the power and position of a CJM.

“These government servants (the petitioners) are of the Electricity Department, were not serving his interest or dancing on his tune, thus by initiating a criminal prosecution against them after levelling bogus and wild allegations, the respondent no.4 wants to kneel down them, before him,” the Court noted in its 25-page order.

Importantly, the Court had opined that CJM Banda virtually auctioned his chair, dignity, and position by making false, motivated, and purposeful allegations in the FIR by misusing his powers as CJM Banda.