Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has quashed a First Information Report (FIR) against two civil judges, terming it a retaliatory act and an abuse of legal process. The judicial officers, accused of using caste-based slurs against their colleagues during their training at the Andhra Pradesh Judicial Academy, faced charges under Section 3(1)(x) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J Sreenivas Rao ruled that the FIR was filed maliciously as a “counterblast” to a complaint lodged earlier by the petitioners against the respondent. The court observed that the respondent filed the FIR two years after the initial disciplinary proceedings and subsequent removal from service, raising serious questions about its intent.
The petitioners, appointed as Junior Civil Judges in 2013, were undergoing judicial training in Bengaluru when a dispute arose among colleagues at their hostel. The petitioners reported the incident to the Director of the Judicial Academy, who forwarded the matter to the High Court. Following an inquiry, the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad imposed disciplinary action in 2015, removing the respondent and others involved from service.
Subsequently, the respondent filed a complaint against the petitioners, alleging caste-based abuse during the original altercation. This led to the registration of the FIR, prompting the petitioners to challenge its validity in court.
The bench noted that the FIR was filed only after the respondent’s removal from service, describing the delay as indicative of malice. “The complaint appears to be a retaliatory act following the disciplinary proceedings initiated against the respondent. This is a clear abuse of the process of law,” the court remarked.
Referring to established legal principles, the court stated that delayed and retaliatory complaints, especially in sensitive matters under the SC/ST Act, undermine the justice system’s credibility.
Advocate N Naveen Kumar represented the petitioners, while government counsel Pottigari Sridhar Reddy appeared for the respondents.
Concluding that the FIR was baseless and filed with malicious intent, the court ordered its quashing, ending the decade-old legal tussle.
