BRAJ KISHORE THAKUR Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) Judicial restraint is a virtue. A virtue which shall be concomitant of every judicial disposition. It is an attribute of a Judge which he is obliged to keep refurbished time to time, particularly while dealing with matters before him whether in exercise of appellate or revisional or other supervisory jurisdiction. Higher Courts must remind themselves constantly that higher tiers are provided in the judicial hierarchy to set right errors which could possibly have crept in the findings or orders of courts at the lower tiers. Such powers are certainly not for belching diatribe at judicial personages in lower cadre. It is well to remember the words of a jurist that "a Judge who has not committed any error is yet to be born".

(3.) The context for making the aforesaid prefatory words is the grievance expressed by the appellant Braj Kishore Thakur, a senior District and Sessions Judge of Bihar Judicial service over the caustic and severe censure made against him by a single Judge of a Patna High Court in an order cancelling the bail granted to two accused involved in an offence under Section 20 (b) (i) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, for Short NDPS Act. The aggrieved Sessions Judge moved the High Court to have those disparaging remarks expunged but instead of getting them erased learned single Judge used the opportunity to reiterate those deprecatory remarks with aggravated severity. Hence the said sessions Judge has come to this Court under Article 136 of the Constitution. We granted special leave to him.