In December 2014, an Indian Supreme Court bench had quashed that inquiry saying that the state chief justice had not constituted the two-judge panel correctly and the panel’s role should have been to only determine whether a deeper probe was necessary.
Justice Gangele was then stripped of administrative and supervisory roles. In India, under the Indian Constitution and the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, some 50 members from the Rajya Sabha or 100 members from the Lok Sabha can sign a petition and hand it over to the Chairman or the Speaker (as is the case) to initiate the process of impeachment of a High Court or Supreme Court judge.
The Speaker of the Lok Sabha or the Chairman of Rajya Sabha (that is, the Vice President) then appoints a committee with a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, a chief justice of a High Court and an eminent jurist. This committee takes evidence and prepares a report. If the report is unanimous, then the Speaker or the Chairman places it before each House. If two-thirds of both Houses vote against the judge, then it is presented to the President, who can remove the judge on the grounds of proven misbehavior or incapacity.
In 1993, a similar motion was initiated against former Supreme Court judge Justice Ramaswami on charges of corruption.
Ramaswami was a judge of the Indian Supreme Court and the first arbiter against whom impeachment proceedings were initiated in independent India.
In the summer of 1990, Justice Ramaswami was accused of lavish expenditure at his official residence during his earlier stint as Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
In July of that year, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court told the judge to desist from discharging judicial functions so long as the investigations continued and until his name was cleared.
In 1991, the Supreme Court Bar Association had demanded his impeachment - also a radical new event.
Eventually in 1993, after a judicial committee found him guilty of most of the 11 charges, a group of 196 Lok Sabha MPs had begun proceedings towards impeachment.
According to Justice Srikrishna, a retired Supreme Court judge, it was said that Justice Ramaswami had a deal with the Congress government that he would resign from the post, but he had continued to hold the position in the Supreme Court till retirement.
In 2009, a petition was submitted by 58 Indian Senators to initiate proceedings against Justice Soumitra Sen, a judge of the Calcutta High Court, for misappropriating public funds (Rs3.3 million) as a lawyer in the early 1980s.
After the judicial probe found him guilty and 189 Rajya Sabha members voted to impeach him in August 2011, he had resigned before the Lok Sabha could initiate the impeachment motion. Only 17 Senators had voted against the impeachment.
He was the first judge in independent India to be impeached in Rajya Sabha for misuse of funds. Justice Sen had retained the money even after being appointed as the High Court judge in 2003.
It was in 2006 after a high court order, that he had returned money.
Both judges, Dinakaran and Sen, still continue to get their retirement perks, as no constitutional or statutory provisions restrict their entitlements in such a scenario.
Yet another Indian arbiter, Justice Dinakaran Premkumar, had relinquished charge in July 2011 following allegations of corruption and subsequent impeachment proceedings.
He was the Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court. Before the scam had surfaced, he was even considered to be elevated to the Supreme Court.
Thereafter, on a complaint from 76 members of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha chairman had admitted a motion for the removal of Justice Dinakaran.
In Sri Lanka, according to an “Indian Express” report of July 2015, a Supreme Court judge was arrested for allegedly assaulting his domestic help, the first ever case in the nation’s history in which a judge from the highest court was held for any offence.
Judge Sarath de Abrew had surrendered to police following an assault complaint lodged by his domestic help.
He was granted bail after being produced in court, police said.
The Bar Association of Sri Lanka had urged fellow judges of the Supreme Court to refuse sitting with him on the bench.
In May 2011, a British High Court judge James Allen’s reputation and career were in ruins, after he was found guilty of battering his wife in a fit of temper over his missed dinner.
Mrs. Allen had described how she punched herself in the head after becoming totally frustrated at her husband wanting to leave the house over a ‘ridiculous’ argument.
Justice Allen, a High Court judge for more than 10 years, said his wife had a history of self-harming and was previously admitted to hospital after cutting her wrists.
Another former Crown Court judge David Selwood, who had admitted a string of child abuse images offences, was given a 12 month rehabilitation order. He was charged after police had found 75 images of naked and semi-naked boys aged between eight and 14 on his laptop computer.
Yet another British arbiter, Richard Hoffman, was cautioned by police for alleged gross indecency. He was arrested with another man in public toilets.
Judge Hoffman was also reprimanded and warned by the Lord Chancellor that any repetition would be likely to lead to his dismissal.
A British circuit judge at the Swansea Crown Court, Justice Price, was investigated after he had let his male escort Christopher Williams sit on the bench and have access to three courts as ‘a law student.’ The judge was accused of exposing his office to possible blackmail threats and bringing the court into disrepute.
A British Chief Circuit judge, Justice Victor Hall, was given a serious warning from the Lord Chancellor after the £91,000 a year Judge was caught driving in a drunken state.
The local magistrates had fined the judge £1,000 and disqualified him from driving.
He was jeered at by people outside the court as he left, and is said to have offered to retire, but was suspended on full pay instead.
Justice Richard Green was jailed for three years after it was known that while he was a solicitor, he took £85,000 from clients’ investment funds.
The thefts committed were on elderly people around 80 to 90. The judge had spent the hoodwinked money on cars, luxury holidays and a yacht.
Justice Viscount of Kent had landed into trouble when he collided into two cars. When interviewed by the police, the Judge had claimed he had not hit either car. He was fined £500 and given five penalty points on his driving license.
Justice Frank Chapman had found his 40-year legal career collapsing after he was found guilty of passing on some information during the hearing to assist a lawyer in a failing prosecution case. He had quickly made the decision to retire instead of facing the complaints that were lodged against him.
To cite just another example from the many in United Kingdom, a District judge Margaret Short was sacked for being ‘rude and petulant.’
The UK Office for Judicial Complaints had said: “Her removal follows a history of complaints about her misconduct in court, primarily about the way in which she behaved towards solicitors appearing before her, but including a variety of other inappropriate behaviour.”
In United States, two judges, Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, were convicted in 2009 of accepting money from a builder of two private youth centers in Pennsylvania state for the detention of juveniles.
The two judges had agreed to impose harsh adjudications on juveniles brought before their courts to increase the number of residents in the private youth centers.
to be continued