Ahmedabad: Gujarat High Court has upheld the dismissal of a judicial magistrate accused of corrupt practices and found to have used three benami mobile phones to remain in contact with a practising lawyer. Describing his conduct as “unbecoming of a judicial officer”, the HC said dismissal from service was “the only appropriate punishment”.The case involved JMFC Amratlal Vizoda, who was suspended in 2008 and faced allegations of accepting money for favourable orders, possessing three benami mobile phones, including one belonging to a woman lawyer, making 186 calls to her between June 2007 and March 2008, and buying a car and taking a personal loan without informing the department.Of 12 charges framed against him, HC’s committee accepted four, including the charge that he possessed three mobile phones registered in the names of different people, one of them the woman lawyer. He was dismissed from service in 2016. He later challenged the disciplinary action before the HC’s judicial side.After the hearing, HC’s bench said, “If a judicial officer decides to accept a phone from a practicing advocate and it is established that he was communicating with the practicing advocate over a certain period of time, that, by itself, would be improper. A judicial officer should not associate himself with practicing advocates and has to maintain a distance from the advocates to prevent any impression of impropriety.”HC further noted, “In this case, the charges alleged against the petitioner and which were essentially admitted by the petitioner clearly indicate that they are not trifling complaints against the petitioner, but complaints which proved that he lacked integrity.”The bench said judicial officers are expected to maintain a high degree of propriety and distance from practising advocates to preserve public confidence in the judiciary. It found no ground to interfere with the punishment imposed on Vizoda and dismissed his challenge to the dismissal order.
