High Court penalizes another judge

THE Supreme Court (SC) penalized a Regional Trial Court (RTC) judge from Cotabato City for delaying the resolution of a motion for inhibition filed by a complainant in one of the cases he handled.

In a 10-page decision promulgated on September 24, Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta found Judge Cader P. Indar, Al Haj. of RTC Branch 14 Branch 14 in Cotabato City guilty of undue delay in rendering an order and conduct unbecoming of a judge.

The SC imposed a fine of P20,000 on Indar that will be deducted from his leave credits.

The ruling stemmed from an administrative complaint filed by a certain Lucia Magtibay, through her counsel, lawyer Frumencio Pulgar, against Indar in relation to Special Proceedings No. 2004-074 titled d In Re: Matter of Insolvencia Voluntaria De Olarte Hermanos y Cia, Heirs of the Late Jose P. Olarte, et al.

The SC decision, posted on its official website, read that Indar denied giving a copy of the records of the case to the complainant, along with her daughter, for allegedly possessing no legal personality to acquire the documents.

The complainant claimed that the judge even told them that "Huwag mo ng ituloy ang sasabihin mo, kumukulo ang dugo sa inyo lumayas na kayo marami akong problema."

Thus, the administrative complaint.

Before that incident, the decision read that the judge denied their application for writ of injunction filed after their former attorney-in-fact allegedly benefited from the compensation from the DPWH for the road right-of-way.

It read that they filed for a motion for inhibition for Indar but was left unresolved.

The SC, in its ruling, said the grant or denial of a writ of preliminary injunction is on the discretion of the court.

However, the SC found Indar liable of not resolving the motion to dismiss and motion for inhibition.

"Even assuming that respondent judge did not find the motion to be meritorious, he could have simply acted on the said motions and indicated the supposed defects in his resolutions instead of just leaving them unresolved," the SC ruled.

The SC added that: "a judge's delay in resolving, within the prescribed period, pending motions and incidents constitutes a violation of Rule 3.05 of the Code of Judicial Conduct requiring judges to dispose of court business promptly.”

The decision was concurred by Associate justices Presbitero J. Velasco Jr., Lucas P. Bersamin, Jose Catral Mendoza and Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe.