Aggrieved by False dog bite case Judiciary Candidate Seeks Direction to restore her candidature: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of India decided to hear a plea by a 30-year-old woman (Apoorva Pathak) against a false dog bite case which affected her ambition to join the judicial service as a judge. Her name was deleted from the merit list despite being selected as a civil judge class II. The bench, Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul issued a notice to the Madhya Pradesh High Court as her appointment was canceled in view of the case lodged against her while trying to save a street dog from being beaten up. Her plea stated that “Material irregularity has been committed in passing the order whereby the name of the petitioner has been deleted from the list of selected candidates of a civil judge without giving any reasonable opportunity of hearing on the basis of mere registration of matter registered against her under Section 289 of IPC (biting by street dog) in which she has been acquitted on merits by the JMFC Court.” Advocate appearing for Pathak, Namit Saxena, submitted that it is violative of the rules of the state government and the High Court to remove a person from the list and needs to be looked at again while removing the name from the list. While hearing the arguments in this case, the bench ordered, “Issue notice, returnable in four weeks.” 

Apoorva Pathak is a law graduate with distinction and a gold medal from the university as well as she cleared the 2019- Madhya Pradesh Judicial Services Examination and was selected for a civil judge post. She submitted before the top Court that she was being framed in a false case and was acquitted by the trial court. While giving the judgment, the order and judgment passed by the Supreme Court in ‘Avtar Singh v. Union of India’ case addressed. The plea filed also highlighted that “The petitioner was not directly involved in the crime but was a mere victim who got injured while saving the street dog from beating by the complainant. Also, from the medical report of the complainant, it has been proved that he was not bitten by any dog as such. The FIR was completely false and malicious hence the JMFC court Bhopal was pleased to acquit the petitioner on merit.” Moreover, the plea determined that the petitioner did not get any opportunity for a hearing before 5 December 2022. Therefore, the plea mentioned before the top Court sought to quash the order delivered on 5 December and seek to issue a direction to restore her candidature as per the list for the post of civil judge class II, which was delivered on 23 April 2022.