AKSHAY BIPIN Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) " I will duly and faithfully and to the best of my ability, knowledge, and judgment perform the duties of my office without fear or favor, affection or ill-will " These words, infused with solemn intensity and pregnant with meaning, serve to guide every judicial officer, in our judicial hierarchy, and permeate every living millisecond of the career of the officer, and the discharge, by her, or him, of the sacred duty so solemnly entrusted to him by the Constitution, carrying with it the expectations and aspirations of the founding fathers of our land, and the fond hopes of the voiceless millions of the country.

(2.) The task of the judicial officer is arduous, and unenviable. It is a constant struggle, the pressure of which the bystander watching from the sidelines can never gauge, to ensure that, in dispensing justice, he does not end up dispensing with justice. No less perilously would the shaking hand of the judge hold the justice-dispensing pen, than would the shaking hand of the surgeon wield the life-infusing scalpel. No less disastrous, either, would the outcome be, if, at the critical moment of pronouncing the verdict, or making the crucial incision, the decision-making mind were to waver, or the hand to tremble.

(3.) I am constrained to observe that, if proceedings such as these are allowed to be initiated and continued, we may as well do away with the requirement of dispensing justice without fear or favour, affection or ill will. It is cardinal, to the dispassionate administration of justice, that the judicial officer should be allowed to function without having, over his head as it were, the ominous shadow of the Damoclean sword. This case presents a classic example of how a judicial officer has been hounded for passing orders which, as the writ petition points out, and as I would also be highlighting in the course of this judgment, are eminently in accordance with the law laid down by this court, in its decisions, in case after case.