Compounding of offences is acquittal in-terms of the provisions in the CrPC but is not equivalent to being innocent: High Court of Chhattisgarh.

1AFRHIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH BILASPUR Writ PetitionNo. 2726 of 20211.Chamru Sai Yadav S o Prem Sai Yadav Aged About 60 Years R o Village AndPost Machadoli Lalpur P.O. Bango Tahsil Katghora District KorbaChhattisgarh. Petitioner Versus 1.State Of Chhattisgarh Through The Secretary Department Of WaterResources Mahanadi Bhawan Atal Nagar Nava Raipur District RaipurChhattisgarh.2.Chief Engineer MinimataWater Resources DepartmentBilaspur Chhattisgarh. 3.Executive Engineer Minimata Bango Project Mandal Division No. 5 KharsiyaDistrict Raigarh Chhattisgarh.4.Executive Engineer Kelo Project Sarvekshan Division Raigarh DistrictRaigarh Chhattisgarh.5.Sub Divisional Officer Kelo Project Sarvekshan Division Sub Division No. 1Lakha District Raigarh Chhattisgarh.6.Collector Raigarh District Raigarh Chhattisgarh. RespondentsFor Petitioner:Shri K. P.S. Gandhi Advocates.For State:Ms. Akanksha Jain Dy.G.A.Hon ble Shri Justice P. Sam Koshy Order On Board 22.06.20211.Aggrieved by the order passed by the respondentsnotice.3.The facts of the case are that the petitioner herein was appointed underthe respondents as a daily wage employee in the year 1984 thereafterthe petitioner stood regularized in service on 08.09.2008has been passed and Annexure P 1 shows thatthe order of termination has been passed after giving one month notice.4.The said impugned order dated 20.04.2010 was never questioned orchallenged by the petitioner before any authority of law. Down the lineafter eight years pending the trial before the Trial Court the petitionercompromised the matter with the complainant and got the casecompounded and the case got disposed of vide order dated 14.07.2018before the Lok Adalat. Now the petitioner approaches the departmentfor treating the order of the Criminal Court dated 14.07.2018 as anorder of acquittal and thereby the petitioner be taken back inemployment.5.This Court is of the opinion that firstly the writ petition is highly belatedin as much as the challenge to the termination is after more than adecade. Secondly the order of termination is only on the basis of a 3Police verification report received by the Department wherein it wasfound that the petitioner was having a criminal background he has alsoremained under custody for about two months and the criminal casewas pending on the date when he was regularized. Thirdly what canalso not be overlooked is the fact that the order passed in favour of thepetitioner on 14.08.2018 is not after completion of the entire trial it s anorder where in the midst of a trial the petitioner entered into acompromise with the complainant and thereafter with the leave of theCourt offences have been compounded. Though it may have an effectof acquittal in terms of the provision of CrPC but what has to be alsoseem is whether on the date when the impugned orderwas passed i.e. on20.04.2010 the petitioner had a criminal antecedent and he wasinvolved in a criminal case for the aforesaid offences he had been injudicial custody for a period of around two months followed by a Policeverification report received by the department in respect of the criminalantecedent and the petitioner having a criminal background. 6.Under the circumstances the action on the part of the respondentswhen the impugned order was passed in the year 2010 can not be saidto be in any manner arbitrary or malafide. Only because in the year2018 the matter i.e. the criminal case got compounded by itself wouldnot give rise to an occasion for challenging a termination order whichwas otherwise passed only on the ground of criminal antecedent. Thesaid order can not be said to be an order of termination of service onaccount of his getting involved in a criminal case or having remained injudicial custody for a period of around two months. It is a case where 4the order of regularization in service which was otherwise subject toverification on verification of finding the criminal antecedent theservices have been discontinued and the same is also purely inaccordance with the conditions stipulated in the order of regularizationitself.7.The view of this Court gets fortified from a recent decision of theHon ble Supreme Court in CIVIL APPEAL NO.3894 OF 2020 in thecase of State of Rajasthan vs Love Kush Meena decided on 24 03 21wherein in paragraph 23 to 27 it has been held as under : “23.Examining the controversy in the present case in theconspectus of the aforesaid legal position what isimportant to note is the fact that the view of this Courthas depended on the nature of offence charged and theresult of the same. The mere fact of an acquittal wouldnot suffice but rather it would depend on whether it is aclean acquittal based on total absence of evidence or inthe criminal jurisprudence requiring the case to beproved beyond reasonable doubt that parameter havingnot been met benefit of doubt has been granted to theaccused. No doubt in that facts of the present case theperson who ran the tractor over the deceased lady wasone of the other co accused but the role assigned to theothers including the respondent herein was not of amere bystander or being present at site. The attack withknives was alleged against all the other co accusedincluding the respondent. 124. We may also notice this is a clear case where theendeavour was to settle the dispute albeit not with thejob in mind. This is obvious from the recital in thejudgment of the Trial Court that the compoundableoffences were first compounded during trial but since theoffence under Section 302 34 IPC could not becompounded the Trial Court continued and qua thoseoffences the witnesses turned hostile. We are of theview that this can hardly fall under the category of aclean acquittal and the Judge was thus right in using theterminology of benefit of doubt in respect of suchacquittal.25. The judgment in Avtar Singh’s caseon therelevant parameter extracted aforesaid clearly stipulatesthat where in respect of a heinous or serious nature ofcrime the acquittal is based on a benefit of reasonabledoubt that cannot make the candidate eligible.26. We may also note the submission of learned counselfor the respondent that as per para 38.3 in Avtar Singh’scasethe employer has to take intoconsideration the Government orders instructions rulesapplicable to the employee at the time of taking adecision. It is her say that the issue whether the circulardated 28.03.2017 would apply or not was res integra inview of the earlier order of the learned Judge dated14.05.2018. She has further contended that in any 2case the circular had come into force and as per thejudgment in Avtar Singh’s casepara 38.4 it isthe date of decision which is material and as on the dateof decision dated 23.05.2017 the said circular wasapplicable.27. We may note here that the circular dated 28.03.2017is undoubtedly very wide in its application. It seeks togive the benefit to candidates including those acquittedby the Court by giving benefit of doubt. However suchcircular has to be read in the context of the judicialpronouncements and when this Court has repeatedlyopined that giving benefit of doubt would not entitlecandidate for appointment despite the circular theimpugned decision of the competent authority dated23.05.2017 cannot be said to suffer from infirmity asbeing in violation of the circular when it is in conformitywith the law laiddown by this Court.8.For all the aforesaid reasons this Court does not find any strong casemade out by the petitioner calling for an interference with the impugnedorder Annexure P 1. The writ petition therefore sans merits and isaccordingly rejected. Sd 1. P. Sam KoshyJudgeJyotijha 

Summary: When a person is acquitted from a case with a compounding order due to the compromise between the parties, it cannot be treated as being innocent. Furthermore, he cannot claim that such an acquittal is sufficient to prove his innocence and he must be reinstated of all the powers e had prior to such an offence. This was held by Hon’ble Shri Justice P. Sam Koshy in the case of Chamru Sai Yadav Vs. State Of Chhattisgarh and Ors. [Writ Petition (S) No. 2726 of 2021] on 22nd June 2021. The brief facts of the case are, the petitioner worked under the respondents as a daily wage earner in 1984. His services were regularized on 08.09.2008. It was the condition of regularization that the credential of the petitioner and other workers would be subject to the verification and the regularization would be subject to the said verification including that of the character certificate to be provided by the Police Authorities. During such a process, it was revealed that the petitioner was involved in a criminal case and was also under judicial custody in 2009. In 2010, the employer issued a notice of one month ordering the termination of services of the petitioner. In 2018, the petitioner got the proceedings dismissed on the grounds of compromise.  He approached the employer with the order of the criminal court and asked the employer to reinstate him, which was declined. Aggrieved by this, the petitioner has filed this petition challenging the order of 2010. After listening to this, the court made three observations. Firstly, it believed that the challenge against the order of termination is highly belated since it has been more than 10 years since that order was issued. Secondly, the order was based only on the police verification report that revealed a criminal background against the petitioner. Third and the most important observation that the court made was, the dismissal order (2008) was passed in between the trial and the trial was never completed. The petitioner had entered into a compromise and had thus gotten the offences compounded. It further mentioned that the order of termination was not malafide relying on the judgement in State of Rajasthan vs Love Kush Meena wherein, “what is important to note is the fact that the view of this Court has depended on the nature of offence charged and the result of the same. The mere fact of an acquittal would not suffice but rather it would depend on whether it is a clean acquittal based on total absence of evidence or in the criminal jurisprudence requiring the case to be proved beyond reasonable doubt, that parameter having not been met, benefit of doubt has been granted to the accused”. Thus, the court held that, “The said order cannot be said to be an order of termination of service on account of his getting involved in a criminal case or having remained in judicial custody for a period of around two months. It is a case where the order of regularization in service, which was otherwise subject to verification, on verification of finding the criminal antecedent, the services have been discontinued and the same is also purely in accordance with the conditions stipulated in the order of regularization itself” and thus dismissed the petition.