Prashant Reddy Thikkavarapu is the Co-author of ‘Tareekh Pe Justice: Reforms for India’s District Courts’, published by Simon & Schuster, India.

In the last month, there have been two judgments from two different High Courts, which have shone a bright light on the unfortunate manner in which the independence of the district judiciary is being hobbled by a faulty disciplinary mechanism, as well as the feudal nature of the relationship between the High Courts and the district judiciary.  

The first is the judgment of a Division Bench of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh in the case of Jagat Mohan Chaturvedi v State of Madhya Pradesh delivered on 14^th July, 2025. The second is the judgment of a Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court in the case of M. J. Indrekar v State of Gujarat delivered on 9^th July, 2025. Both judgments pertain to the dismissal of judges of the district judiciary by the state governments, on the recommendations of their respective High Courts, after the conduct of disciplinary inquiries. 

Independence of the district judiciary from the state government 

As per Article 235 of the Constitution, the district judiciary functions under the control of the High Courts. This means that the state government can act against the judges of the district judiciary, only on the recommendations of the High Court. In the case of complaints against a judge of the district judiciary, it is a committee of judges of the High Courts who conduct or oversee the disciplinary inquiry. Their findings and recommendations on punishment have to be approved by the Full Court of the High Court, consisting of all judges of the court. The state government is bound by the recommendation of the High Court and can only issue the final notification in the name of the Governor. This arrangement ensures that the district judiciary is effectively insulated from pressure by the state government. In theory this should have meant that the district judiciary is completely independent to discharge its function. However, in practice there is mounting evidence to indicate that the manner in which High Courts conduct disciplinary inquiries is harming the ‘decisional independence’ of the district judiciary. It is this same disciplinary and administrative control exercised by High Courts over the district judiciary, which has contributed in significant part to the feudal relationship between the High Courts and the district judiciary. 

The lack of decisional independence of the district judiciary

In both cases, referenced above, disciplinary inquiries had been initiated against the judges of the district judiciary for orders rendered in their judicial capacity, despite no evidence of corruption or other forms of misconduct. In the Chaturvedi case, a Sessions Judge was charged, in the course of a disciplinary inquiry, on four counts of improperly granting bail. Of these four charges, only one charge contained an allegation (albeit unsubstantiated with credible evidence) of “extraneous consideration” having motivates his decision. The other three charges accused the judge of being inconsistent in granting bail to different persons accused in the Vyapam scam. In essence, the judge was being subject to a disciplinary inquiry simply because someone within the High Court was of the opinion that the judge had not been consistent in his handling of bail application. 

Similarly in the second case of M. J. Indrekar, a Civil Judge (Senior Division) was charged, in the course of a disciplinary inquiry with committing a corrupt practice and dereliction of duty tantamount to grave misconduct because he granted an ex-parte mandatory injunction in a commercial dispute between a transport company and an oil company. There was no evidence of the judge having been influenced by a bribe. As with the previous case, the main grouse of the disciplinary authority appears to have been that the judge did not follow accepted legal principles. There was no evidence of a bribe being paid to the judge.  

In most countries, if it is felt that the reasoning of a judgment is flawed, the only recourse is to file an appeal before an appellate court. However, in India, disciplinary proceedings are routinely initiated against judges for alleged legal errors, in their judgments. The errors are presumed to be due to the judge having received a bribe, despite there being no actual evidence of a bribe being piad.

In both cases discussed above, the Madhya Pradesh High Court and Gujarat High Court eventually set aside the dismissal of the judges in question but with different reasoning. In the Chaturvedi case, the Madhya Pradesh High Court concluded that the disciplinary inquiry was not warranted since there was no complaint against the judge by either those whose bail had been denied or by the prosecution which opposed bail in some cases. It also found on the one charge of corruption that there was no evidence of a bribe being paid to the judge. 

The reasoning offered by the Gujarat High Court in the case of M. J. Indrekar was very different – it concluded in no uncertain terms that a judge of the district judiciary “cannot be subjected to disciplinary proceedings merely because judgments/order passed by him/her are wrong.” And that disciplinary inquiries should not be initiated unless there were “clear-cut allegations of “misconduct”, extraneous influences, gratification of any kind, etc.” 

Interestingly, one of the common conclusions arrived at by both judgments in both Jagat Chaturvedi and Indrekar was that unfair disciplinary inquiries against the district judiciary would adversely affect the functioning of the district judiciary. In Chaturvedi the Madhya Pradesh High Court very presciently warns that disciplinary inquiries for granting bail would create a climate of fear amongst the district judiciary leading to these judges denying bail even in deserving cases. The court states in pertinent part that “A District Judiciary which is compelled to work perpetually under this fear cannot dispense justice and instead shall dispense with justice.” 

It is these disciplinary inquiries against judges granting bail which may be leading to the flood of bail petitions before the High Court and Supreme Courts, as I have elaborated upon with Chitrakshi Jain, in this opinion editorial for the Times of India. The denial of bail by the district courts because of the fear of a disciplinary inquiry, is likely the leading to litigants flooding the High Courts and the Supreme Court with bail petitions.The Supreme Court last year, reportedly heard 21,000 bail petitions, an unsustainable volume of litigation in the long run. 

Similarly, in the case of Indrekar, the Gujarat High Court cautioned as follows: 

“If in every case where an order of a subordinate court is found to be faulty a disciplinary action was to be initiated, the confidence of the subordinate judiciary will be shaken and the officers will be in constant fear of writing a judgment so as not to face a disciplinary enquiry and thus such approach will have a deleterious effect on their independence and boldness.”        

As I argue with my co-author Chitrakshi Jain in our book Tareekh Pe Justice: Reforms for India’s District Courts, this fear amongst the district judges is eroding their “decisional independence” and contributing in large part to the pendency problem in India, as judges of the district judiciary evade or delay hearing cases on their docket due to the fear of disciplinary inquiries. 

An unfortunate judicial hierarchy 

One last point that deserves further discussion is the scathing observation by the Madhya Pradesh High Court in the Chaturvedi case on the nature of the relationship between the judges of the High Court and judges of the district judiciary. Recounting instances wherein district court judges have had to personally attend to the judges of the High Courts by receiving them on railway platforms or by waiting for them with refreshments the Madhya Pradesh High Court concluded that the relationship is “not based on mutual respect but one where a sense of fear and inferiority is consciously instilled by one on the subconscious of the other”. 

Going even further, the Madhya Pradesh High Court concludes that the judicial hierarchy resembles the caste hierarchy, stating in pertinent part, the following: 

“At a subliminal level, the penumbra of the caste system manifests in the judicial structure in this state where those in the High Court are the savarn as and the shudras are the les Misérables of the District Judiciary this is reflected in the abject supineness of the Judges of the District Judiciary.”

This is an extraordinary and candid critique of the unequal power equations between the High Courts and the district judiciary. The primary reason for this unequal relationship is the disciplinary power that the High Court wields over the judges of the district courts. Judges of the High Court can also decide the transfer of judges of the district court and conduct the performance assessment of district judges. If the power equation between these two classes of judges is adversely affecting the decisional independence of the district judiciary, it may be time to consider institutional reforms.