C Ravichandran Iyer v Justice A M Bhattacharjee
Rule established
A Bar Association has no authority to sit in judgment on a Judge or to demand his resignation by resolution or by abstention from work. There is a gap between conduct amounting to proved misbehaviour warranting removal and conduct merely unbecoming of judicial office, and that gap is filled by an in-house procedure headed by the Chief Justice of India.
Facts
- Allegations were made concerning the conduct of a sitting Chief Justice of a High Court, relating to matters outside his judicial functions.
- A Bar Association passed resolutions calling upon him to resign his office.
- It resolved further to abstain from work in his court, and to press the demand by collective action.
- The Judge concerned was thereby placed in a position in which he could not effectively discharge his functions, though no proceeding for removal under Art.124(4) read with Art.218 had been initiated and no charge had been established against him.
- The petitioner approached the Supreme Court raising the propriety of the Bar's conduct and the question of the appropriate machinery.
- It was common ground that the allegations, even if made out, might not amount to proved misbehaviour of the kind required for removal.
Issue
- Whether a Bar Association may agitate for a Judge's resignation; and what remedy exists for judicial misconduct that falls short of proved misbehaviour warranting removal.
Held
- The Bar's conduct was disapproved. Bar Associations have no authority to judge a Judge or to demand his resignation by resolution, and abstention from work in his court damages the institution and the litigants rather than vindicating any principle; the independence of the judiciary is as much threatened by pressure from the Bar as by pressure from the executive. The Court identified what it described as a "yawning gap" between conduct constituting proved misbehaviour, for which removal is the constitutional remedy, and conduct merely unbecoming of the office, for which the Constitution provides nothing. To fill that gap the Court approved an in-house procedure, in which the Chief Justice of India, as the paterfamilias of the judicial family, may receive a complaint, cause it to be examined, and if satisfied of its substance may counsel the Judge, advise him to resign or seek voluntary retirement, or, if he declines, withdraw judicial work from him and report the matter to the appropriate authorities.
Ratio Decidendi
The Constitution's silence about misconduct below the threshold of removal cannot mean that such conduct is beyond redress, for public confidence in the courts would then depend on the accident of whether misconduct happened to be grave enough for Parliament. But the remedy must come from within the judiciary, because any external mechanism, whether executive or professional, would create precisely the dependence that the removal provisions were designed to prevent. The Chief Justice's moral and institutional authority supplies a sanction that is effective without being coercive.
How to use it in an exam
- The origin of the in-house procedure. Cite it whenever a question asks what can be done about a Judge whose conduct is improper but not removable.
- The phrase "yawning gap" is worth quoting, and the structure of the answer follows from it: removal for proved misbehaviour, the in-house procedure for everything else.
- Note the three outcomes available under the procedure: advice to resign or retire, withdrawal of judicial work, and a report to the appropriate authorities.
- Use it against any suggestion that Bar Associations, the press or the executive may take direct action against a Judge, and note that a boycott harms litigants first.
- Read with K Veeraswami v Union of India 1991 on criminal liability, and with the Restatement of Values of Judicial Life adopted in 1997, together with the resolution requiring Judges to declare assets to the Chief Justice.
- In an evaluative answer, note the criticism that the in-house procedure is itself opaque, that its proceedings are not public and its outcomes not announced, which is the accountability problem the Right to Information litigation later engaged.
Source
Source: (1995) 5 SCC 457; AIR 1995 SC 1349; the origin of the in-house procedure for dealing with judicial misconduct short of removal; citation and bench checked against Indian Kanoon and reported sources, audit of 12 August 2026
This is an educational summary, not the judgment itself. Cite the reported version in professional or academic work.