Caught 'copying, pasting' verdict, Judge to have his work evaluated

Tribune News Service

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, September 19

Caught allegedly copying and pasting a trial court judgment while hearing an appeal against it, a judicial officer has landed up getting his past verdicts evaluated to see whether a similar method had been adopted earlier as well.

10 judgments to be checked

The District & Sessions Judge, Gurdaspur, is directed to randomly check at least 10 judgments passed by the Judge concerned to find out whether a similar modus operandi was applied by the Judge while deciding civil appeals and submit a report in this regard. — Justice Arvind Singh Sangwan

Taking up a regular second appeal against his verdict, Justice Arvind Singh Sangwan of the Punjab and Haryana High Court not only directed the judicial officer to submit an explanation, but also asked the Gurdaspur District and Sessions Judge to randomly check at least 10 judgments passed by him in civil appeals.

Justice Sangwan made it clear that the rationale behind undertaking the exercise was “to find out whether a similar modus operandi is applied by the Judge, while deciding civil appeals. The explanation and the report were directed to be submitted positively before the next hearing in March 2023.

The direction by Justice Sangwan came after the appellant’s counsel contended that the lower appellate court had miserably failed to apply its judicial mind. In the impugned order, the lower appellate court just copied and pasted the trial court judgment, “line to line and word for word”.

Justice Sangwan’s Bench was further told that not even a comma or a full stop was changed, indicating that the court did not apply its judicial mind or even tried to understand the controversy between the parties.

The counsel also referred to a Supreme Court judgment holding that the court, in the first appeal against the subordinate court orders, must assess independently the evidence before considering the relevant points arising for adjudication.

Before parting with the case, Justice Sangwan stayed the operation of the impugned order. The case has its genesis in a land dispute. The appellant’s argument was that the land was still “joint” among the co-owners and not partitioned by “metes and bounds”.

As such, the suit for possession was not maintainable at the instance of other co-sharers.

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