Aastha Thakur
Published on: 19th September, 2022 at 22:12 IST
The District and Sessions Judge of Gurdaspur has been ordered by the Punjab and Haryana High Court to randomly examine at least 10 of a judicial officer’s decisions in civil appeals to see whether any kind of plagiarism was used in them.
The ruling was made by Justice Arvind Sangwan following an argument made by the attorney for an appellant in a Regular Second Appeal that the Lower Appellate Court has “miserably failed to apply its judicial mind” as in the impugned order passed by it, the judgement passed by the trial court has been “just copied and pasted, line to line, word to word and even, there is no change of comma or full stop”.
Justice Sangwan took notice of the arguments and ordered the Judicial Officer, who rendered the decision on December 10 of 2019 and is due back in court on March 27, 2023, to provide an explanation.
The court further said:
“The District & Sessions Judge, Gurdaspur, is also directed to randomly check at least 10 judgments passed by the said Judge in civil appeals, to find out whether similar modus is applied by the said Judge, while deciding the civil appeals and submit a report, in this regard.”
According to the ruling in the land dispute case, the appellant’s attorney pointed to the findings made by the Lower Appellate Court in Paragraphs 35 to Paragraphs 45 where the points raised in the case have been reviewed at the hearing on September 19 as per the order.
“… and word to word, trial court order is copied and pasted and only in the conclusion part, some observations are made by the Lower Appellate Court,” the order reads.
The appellant’s attorney contended that the Supreme Court had determined in a 2011 decision that the first appellate court hearing the challenge to the lower court’s order must impartially evaluate the parties’ evidence.
The court postponed the effect of the contested order until March 27, 2023, and gave notice in the matter for that day.
