Offering gifts to Judges is Unethical

Recently an interesting development took place when the Chief Justice of J&K and Ladakh High Court issued a circular directing the Judicial Officers of subordinate courts to refrain from receiving, seeing off, arranging trips, hotels, food or offering gifts to visiting Chief Justice of High Court Judges.

The directions given by Chief Justice Prajak Mithal, in the circular are as follows-

• Judicial Officers have been restricted from receiving, seeing off, or visiting the Chief Justice or any other High Court Judge, who has come to visit the subordinate Court.
• Any such activity such as receiving, seeing off, or any other similar protocol to the Chief Justice/High Court Judge shall be done by a senior non-judicial Administrative officer.
• Any meeting or official phone call, if the visiting Judge desires to do so, shall be done before or after the court hours.
• Judicial Officers are also barred from arranging any private trips, excursions, or hotels, and from offering gifts or hospitality to visiting High Court Judges.

If any arrangement is required to be made by the District Judge or Chief Judicial Magistrate in relation to the visit of the Hon’ble Chief Justice/Hon’ble Judges of the High Court, all the bills shall be named in the name of the High Court and be paid by the High Court to the extent permitted. Also, no personal funds will be used by any Judicial Officer for this purpose.

Judicial Officers shall also refrain from organizing functions during the visit of the High Court Judges. The official function shall be organized at the cost of the Government if there are any written directions.

The practice of the Liaison Officer’s duty to the Judicial Officers shall end. Any such function, shall be performed by the Senior Administrative Officer or alternatively Mobile Magistrate or Leave Reserve Officer. 

Any violation of the guidelines will be treated as “gross misconduct” and would result in disciplinary action against the judicial officer.

It needs to be mentioned here, that the circular is not a set of guidelines that were newly made. But the Guidelines have been already there in existence and the circular is a mere reminder of the guidelines.

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