The Supreme Court has taken suo motu notice of the contentious termination of six female judges on the recommendation of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. The decision, enacted in June 2023, was based on citing inadequate performance during the probationary period.

During the hearing today the bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Sanjay Karol issued a notice to the Registrar General of the Madhya Pradesh High Court and all six judges, seeking necessary details. The bench appointed Advocate Gaurav Agarwal as amicus curiae to assist the court, indicating the gravity of the issues raised by the terminated judges. The affected judges are Sarita Chaudhary, Rachna Atulkar Joshi, Priya Sharma, Sonakshi Joshi, Aditi Kumar Sharma, and Jyoti Barkhade.

Earlier, three of the terminated judges had filed a petition in the Supreme Court, which was later withdrawn. The court advised them to file a writ petition in the High Court. While those petitions were pending, the terminated judges wrote a letter to the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, leading the Supreme Court to take suo moto action against the Madhya Pradesh High Court's decision.

One of the judges, Sarita Chaudhary, filed an impleadment application, claiming that her termination was illegal and lacked due process. She asserted having an unblemished service record spanning four years, with no adverse remarks. Chaudhary argued that her fundamental rights under Articles 14 and 21 of the Indian Constitution were violated.

Chaudhary highlighted the arbitrary nature of her termination, pointing out discrepancies in the reasons provided by the Madhya Pradesh High Court. Despite receiving a grade B (very good) in her Annual Confidential Report for 2022, she received a grade D (average) from the Chief Justice, issued a month after her termination.

Moreover, Chaudhary emphasized that her termination occurred after the probation period had concluded in November 2020. Even if the probation period were extended, as per rules, it could not have gone beyond November 2021. She also raised concerns about the evaluation of her performance during the probation period, citing the gross violation of her fundamental rights if maternity and child care leave were considered in the quantitative work assessment.

The application argued, "It is a settled law that maternity and child care leave is a fundamental right of a woman and also the infant; therefore, evaluating the applicant’s performance for the probation period based on the leave taken by her as part of maternity and child care is grossly violative of her fundamental rights."

Senior Advocate PS Patwalia represented Judge Sarita Chaudhary, while the other three judges were represented by Advocate Savitri Pandey, and Advocate Charu Mathur was present for Judge Sonakshi Joshi, among others.