Don't summon senior officers at the drop of a hat - Supreme Court tells High Courts - often it is nothing but for the ego satisfaction of the learned Judge.
A recent order by the Supreme Court would be music to the ears of senior bureaucrats, who are often made to surrender their bureaucratic arrogance before the judicial might of their Lordships. Most of them mutter under their breaths unprintable vulgarities when summoned before Courts, but often do so to avoid judicial wrath.
A Gujarat High Court judge summoned the Chief Secretary and Law Secretary of the Gujarat government to be personally present before him "so that the Court may have a direct dialogue with them that what effective steps they are taking to provide sufficient staff to the office of the Government Pleader/Public Prosecutor and to avoid delay at every stage".
The Supreme Court was not pleased. In his classic style, Justice Katju observed,
++ A large number of cases have come up before this Court where we find that learned Judges of various High Courts have been summoning the Chief Secretary, Secretaries to the government (Central and State), Director Generals of Police, Director, CBI or BSF or other senior officials of the government. There is no doubt that the High Court has power to summon these officials, but in our opinion that should be done in very rare and exceptional cases when there are compelling circumstances to do so.
++ Such summoning orders should not be passed lightly or as a routine or at the drop of a hat.
++ Judges should have modesty and humility.
++Judges should realize that officials like the Chief Secretary, Secretary to the government, Commissioners, District Magistrates, senior police officials etc. are extremely busy persons who are often working from morning till night.
++ Hence, frequent, casual and lackadaisical summoning of high officials by the Court cannot be appreciated.
++We are constrained to make these observations because we are coming across a large number of cases where such orders summoning of high officials are being passed by the High Courts and often it is nothing but for the ego satisfaction of the learned Judge.
++ Such senior officials need not be made to stand all the time when the hearing is going on, and they can be offered a chair by the Court to sit. They need to stand only when answering or making a statement in the Court.
++ The senior officials too have their self-respect, and if the Court gives them respect they in turn will respect the Court. Respect begets respect.
++The Secretary General of this Court is directed to circulate a copy of this judgment to the Registrar Generals/Registrars of all the High Courts, who shall circulate copies of the said judgment to all Hon'ble Judges of the High Courts.
Once in a way summoning a senior officer to personally attend before the Court may have the desired effect in spurring babudom into action, but frequent and unnecessary summoning will only cause damage to public good and when a senior officer is summoned, he doesn't come alone but with a battalion of officers to assist him. And the citizens who want the services of these babus are told that all of them are in Court!
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