The Gujrat High Court (HC) came down heavily on a serving additional district judge, who is presently under suspension and facing disciplinary proceedings – over allegations of misconduct, including “intimate relations” with an outsourced clerk, misuse of court staff for setting up the clerk’s business venture, obstructing CCTV cameras, irregular court sittings and threatening peons – while dismissing a petition moved by the judge seeking to quash departmental proceedings against him.

The court has directed that criminal contempt proceedings be considered against the petitioning judicial officer, additional district judge G R Soni.

A Division Bench of Justices N S Sanjay Gowda and J L Odedra, in a judgment delivered on May 8, held that the petitioner’s allegations against a senior judge of the Gujarat HC amounted to an attempt to “scandalise the court” and “lowers the authority of the court.” The bench observed that “these assertions clearly constitute a criminal contempt.”

The Division Bench made these…