LUCKNOW : Senior IAS officer and Devi Patan Mandal Commissioner Durga Shakti Nagpal has come under judicial scrutiny after the Allahabad High Court took serious exception to an alleged attempt to influence a civil judge handling a nearly three-decade-old land dispute in Gonda.
The Lucknow Bench, while hearing a transfer application connected with a 1997 land dispute, observed that the alleged pressure on Civil Judge (Senior Division) Shabina Khan prima facie struck at the independence of the judiciary. The court said the matter warranted consideration by the forum dealing with criminal contempt and directed that it be placed before the appropriate court after necessary directions from the Chief Justice or senior judge.
The controversy stems from a telephone conversation on July 15, when, according to the judge’s subsequent complaint, Nagpal contacted her while she was on leave and sought to discuss the pending case. The judge said she declined to discuss the matter over the phone and indicated that the government could present its position through lawyers in court. She subsequently alleged that the conversation involved questions about her conduct and a suggestion that the case could be transferred.
The judge later approached the Gonda District Judge seeking transfer of the case, which was subsequently moved to another court of equivalent jurisdiction.
Nagpal, however, has given a different account, maintaining that she had not intended to discuss the merits of the litigation and had only sought information about when the judge would resume hearing the matter.
The High Court nevertheless said it could not ignore the allegations, stressing that subordinate courts must be protected from pressure so that judicial officers can perform their duties fearlessly.
The development has put the conduct of a senior Uttar Pradesh bureaucrat under the scanner and raised wider questions over the boundaries between executive authority and judicial independence.