The Madhya Pradesh High Court recommended a disciplinary enquiry against a trial court judge for failing to properly follow its order to conduct an enquiry in a property dispute case. The Court found the judge’s explanation unsatisfactory and directed the matter to be placed before the Chief Justice for possible action.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court has recommended a disciplinary enquiry against a trial court judge after finding that he failed to properly comply with its earlier direction to conduct an enquiry in a property dispute case.
The direction came in the matter where the High Court had previously ordered the trial court to investigate whether a status quo order passed in the dispute had been violated by construction on the contested property.
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The case traces back to April 2024, when the High Court directed the concerned trial court to conduct a detailed enquiry and determine whether any party had breached the status quo order by raising construction on the disputed land. Such enquiries generally require the court to examine evidence, hear witnesses, and determine whether the court’s earlier order has been violated.
However, the High Court later found that the trial court had not submitted the required enquiry report even after a long period. By November 2025, the report was still not received. Taking serious note of the delay, the High Court directed the Principal District and Sessions Judge, Bhind to obtain an explanation from the trial court judge responsible for conducting the enquiry.
Soon after this direction, the trial court judge obtained a spot inspection report from the Public Works Department (PWD) through its Executive Engineer and forwarded that report to the High Court.
When the matter came up again in January 2026, the High Court expressed dissatisfaction with the manner in which the enquiry had been handled. It directed the Principal District and Sessions Judge to examine whether any proper enquiry had actually been conducted in accordance with the High Court’s earlier order.
After examining the situation, the Principal District and Sessions Judge concluded that the trial court judge had been negligent in performing his judicial duties.
The matter was then placed before Justice GS Ahluwalia of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. In an order dated February 17, the Court found the explanation given by the trial judge, Vivek Mal, to be unsatisfactory. The judge is currently posted as II Additional Judge to I Civil Judge Junior Division.
Rejecting the explanation, the High Court observed:
“The explanation given by the trial Judge is not satisfactory because he has not assigned any reasons for not recording the evidence of witnesses before submitting the report. Although the trial Court might be right in obtaining spot inspection report, but that report should have been considered after recording evidence of witnesses and the trial Court should have come to a conclusion as to whether temporary injunction order was breached by any of the parties or not, but nothing of that sort has been done. Apart from that, the trial Court kept the matter pending for considerably long time,”
the High Court said.
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The Court further stated that such conduct on the part of the trial court required further scrutiny and possible disciplinary action.
“Accordingly, Office is directed to send photocopy of all the order-sheets of this Court, copy of enquiry report dated 31/1/2026 submitted by Principal District and Sessions Judge, Bhind, explanation given by concerning Judge on 30/1/2026, as well as, PUD dated 31/10/2025 to the Registrar General of this Court for placing before Hon’ble the Chief Justice for necessary information as well as for any disciplinary action, if required against said Officer or not,”
it directed.
The High Court has also ordered that the enquiry originally directed in April 2024 will now be conducted by a different civil judge to ensure that the matter is properly examined.
Advocate Anand V Bhardwaj appeared for the applicants in the case, while Advocate Abhishek Singh Bhadoriya represented the respondents.
Case Title:
Ashok Kumar and Others v Smt Meera Devi
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