Source: https://www.lawweb.in/2018/05/whether-government-servant-can-be.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 22:51:49+00:00

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Law Web: Whether a government servant can be compulsorily retired on ground that FIR is registered against him?
Whether a government servant can be compulsorily retired on ground that FIR is registered against him?
The facts in the present case are eloquent. The petitioner has appended with the writ petition ‘Annual Performance Reports’ wherein and whereunder his achievements, have been judged/evaluated from time to time by his superiors. For the periods 2005/06, 2006/07 & 2007, 08, the petitioner has been rated as an official whose work has been Excellent/Good/satisfactory. Annexure (C) attached to the petition is a communication of the Deputy General Manager, JKPCC Ltd., Kashmir, addressed to the Deputy General Manager, Administration, JKPCC Ltd., Jammu, which reveals that the APRs of the petitioner, as these relate to the years 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11, along with the Integrity Certificate, have been forwarded to the addressee for necessary action at his end.
22. The aforementioned Annual Performance Reports have been shelved. These have escaped the scrutiny of the Committee. It appears to have been done with an ultimate aim of showing the petitioner the exit and, had these reports been considered, the conclusion would have been otherwise. The enunciation of law, signifies that registration of FIR or pendency of criminal case(s), cannot form the edifice for retirement of an employee compulsorily when his APR entries are good and integrity is portrayed in the APRs as satisfactory not to mention as excellent.
Comm. Sectt. PWD & Ors.
M.K. Hanjura, J.:— By the medium of this writ petition, the petitioner has challenged the defensibility and the legality of the order bearing No. 36 of 2015 dated 30th June, 2015, passed by the Managing Director, J&K PCC, Ltd., Srinagar, directing the retirement of the petitioner from service with effect from the forenoon of 01.07.2015 in terms of Article 226(2) of the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Service Regulations (CSR).
2. The facts, as are necessary for the disposal of this writ petition need to be enumerated and recapitulated. The petitioner initially worked as a daily rated worker in the respondent department. He was regularized as Junior Assistant in the year 1992. Thereafter, he qualified the AMIE examination and obtained a diploma certificate in Civil Engineering. It is contended in the writ petition that the petitioner made representation for his promotion before the respondents which remained under process for about 07 years and, thereafter, in the year 2000, he was promoted as Assistant Manager. In the meanwhile, on the basis of the complaints, challenging the genuineness of the degree/s of the petitioner, the matter was investigated into by a High Empowered Committee, which came to the conclusion that the degree is genuine. However, the complaints were also filed before the Vigilance Organization Kashmir (VOK), who registered an F.I.R bearing No. 07/2011 u/s 420, 467, 468 RPC against the petitioner, as a consequence of which, he was detained and sent to the custody for a period of more than 48 hours. The respondent department placed the petitioner under suspension and the same was never reviewed, compelling the petitioner to approach the Court in terms of SWP No. 270/2012, in which the respondents were directed to review the suspension of the petitioner but of no avail. The petitioner filed a contempt petition seeking compliance of the said order. The petitioner has further stated in the writ petition that, in the meantime, on 10-03-2015, another F.I.R bearing No. 18/2015 was registered by the VOK, alleging that the petitioner has assets, licit to the known sources of his income. Explaining the accusation, the petitioner submitted that the property shown to be belonging to him, does not actually belong to him. The petitioner was granted pre-arrest bail by the Court on 19-03-2015. The petitioner has further stated that the investigation initiated to probe the baseless allegations against him is not being completed and no progress has been achieved in it and to add to the misery inflicted upon the petitioner, the respondents have come up with the order dated 30-06-2015, impugned herein, compulsorily retiring the petitioner w.e.f. 01-07-2015. The petitioner has proceeded to state that the order impugned is without jurisdiction, arbitrary and has been passed on mala fide reasons. At the end the petitioner has sought the indulgence of this Court in quashing the impugned order with the direction to the respondents to allow him to continue in service till such time that he reaches the age of superannuation.
3. Counter affidavit has been filed by the respondents in which it has been pleaded that the Government, for providing clean and effective administration to the public, conducts a periodic review of all its officers with the intention of appreciating and encouraging the honest and efficient Government servants and provide clean and effective administration to the people and maintain high standards of efficiency besides weeding out the dead wood in the shape of inefficient and corrupt officers/officials. While doing so, recourse to Regulation 226(2) and (3) of the Civil Service Regulations (CSR) is being taken. The order of compulsory retirement of the petitioner is neither punitive nor stigmatic but it is based on the subjective satisfaction of the employer. It is further stated that the scope of judicial review in such matters is very limited. The petitioner is involved in F.I.R No. 07/2011, registered by the VOK u/s 420, 467, 468 RPC for obtaining undue gains on the basis of fake & forged academic and technical qualification certificates. Another F.I.R bearing No. 18/2015 is also registered against the petitioner for having assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. The order of premature retirement of the petitioner is based on the sacrosanct object of weeding out the dead wood in order to maintain a high standard of efficiency and initiative in the State services, and therefore, the writ petition deserves to be dismissed.
4. Learned counsel for the petitioner has contended that the order of compulsory retirement of the petitioner is a result of the non application of mind. It is submitted that the First Information Reports cannot form the sole basis and the bedrock of passing an order of compulsory retirement. Learned counsel for the petitioner has further argued that the genesis of the opinion, dubbing the petitioner to be an inefficient employee, is based on the fact that two First Information Reports have been registered against him. It is further submitted that there is no material on record except for the registration of the First Information Reports even to, prima facie, indicate that the efficiency or integrity of the petitioner is doubtful.
5. Per contra, learned AAG, representing the respondents, has argued that it was under the shade and cover of two F.I.Rs having been registered against the petitioner, and he having been known to be a person having bad reputation, that he was shown the door. The corporation, in which the petitioner served, in an attempt to cleave to the principles of chopping the dead wood in the shape of corrupt and inefficient servants from service, passed the order, impugned herein. The learned AAG has, however, stated that the “Annual Performance Reports” (APR) of the petitioner were not considered in the mater of passing the order impugned for the reason that these were not available.
“Government Instructions: Levels at which screening should be conducted for Non-Gazetted Employees.
(i) At the Non-Gazetted level, a Screening Committed comprising of the Head of the Department and two other Senior Officers of the Department to be nominated by the concerned Administrative Department should conduct the review. The Screening Committee should screen the cases of all concerned persons and forward its recommendations to the Administrative Department for further follow up action in terms of Art. 226 (2) of J&K CSR. This review should be done regularly, preferably twice every year in the months of January and July each. The review should be conducted by the cadre controlling Administrative Department which controls the service to which the concerned Government servant belongs irrespective of where he may be working at the relevant time. However, if the employee is working in a different department then the Screening Committee should consist of at least one Senior Officer from the department in which the Government servant is/was working at the relevant time.
(ii) The review should, normally be initiated around six months before the officer/official attains the prescribed age or completes the prescribed service. A separate register can be maintained for keeping a watch on the time schedule for such review.
(iii) The final decision in the matter for Non Gazetted staff should rest with Administrative Department, which should take a final decision based upon the report of the Screening Committee. This should be done within a period of three months of receipt of report from the Screening Committee. The gist of the final decision can be recorded in the service book of the employee.
(iv) The decision of the Administrative Department implies a decision by the concerned Minister of the Department on file. Hence, he can review his own decision in the form of considering representations made by the concerned employees against the initial decision pertaining to premature retirement in the interest of natural justice.
Norms to be followed by the Screening Committees in cases of Non Gazetted Employees.
(i) The Annual Performance Report of the Non-Gazetted Employees are not normally written very carefully nor are they fully available in a large number of cases. The Screening Committee should, therefore, consider the entire service record including all material and relevant information available on record about the employees before coming to any conclusion.
“13. While reviewing this case from the next angle for judicial scrutiny, i.e., want of evidence or material to reach such a conclusion, we may add that want of any material is almost equivalent to the next situation that from the available materials, no reasonable man would reach such a conclusion. While evaluating the materials, the authority should not altogether ignore the reputation in which the officer was held till recently. The maxim ‘nemo firutrepenteturpissimus’ (no one becomes dishonest all of a sudden) is not unexceptional but still it is a salutary guideline to judge human conduct, particularly in the field of administrative law. The authorities should not keep their eyes totally closed towards the overall estimation in which the delinquent officer was held in the recent past by those who were supervising him earlier. To dunk an officer into the puddle of “doubtful integrity “, it is not enough that the doubt fringes on a mere hunch. That doubt should be of such a nature as would reasonably and consciously be entertainable by a reasonable man on the given material. Mere possibility is hardly sufficient to assume that it would have happened. There must be preponderance of probability for the reasonable man to entertain doubt regarding that possibility. Only then there is justification to ram an officer with the label “doubtful integrity”.
13. The law is that the order of compulsory retirement, taken under the safety valve of public interest, could not be treated as a major punishment and that Article 311 (2) of the Constitution could not be invoked, as the employee concerned was no longer fit in the public interest to continue in service and, therefore, he can be compulsorily retired. On an analysis of the principles laid down above, the order of compulsory retirement can be subjected to judicial scrutiny, if the Court is satisfied that the order is passed (a) mala fide; or (b) that it is based on no evidence; or (c) that it is arbitrary - in the sense that no reasonable and prudent man would form such an opinion on the given material, in which case it falls under the category of an order termed to be perverse in the eyes of law. For framing an opinion to compulsorily retire a public servant, there should be some material on record to support and fortify it, as otherwise, it would amount to arbitrary or colourable exercise of power and, therefore, the order could be challenged on the grounds that the requisite opinion was based on no evidence or had not been formed or the decision was based on collateral grounds or that is was an arbitrary decision.
“21. That being so, the contention of learned Advocate General that the Government is competent to formulate an opinion with regard to compulsory retirement of a public servant solely on the basis of registration of an FIR or a criminal case, under certain set of facts and circumstances like apprehending the public servant demanding and accepting bribe red handed in a trap laid for the purpose, cannot be accepted.
22. The other contention of learned Advocate General that apart from the criminal case registered against the respondent under the Jammu and Kashmir Prevention of Corruption Act, the Screening Committee also took into consideration that the respondent did not enjoy a good reputation due to his consistent conduct over a period of time, is equally devoid of any merit. First of all, as admitted by the learned Advocate General that there was no material before the Committee to come to such a satisfaction and secondly, even if it is accepted, as contended by the learned Advocate General, that the assessment of the Committee was on the basis of spoken reputation, in that eventuality also, it was mandatory for the Committee to have spelt out the same in the minutes of meeting conducted for the purpose.
23. In response to the query put by this Court, the learned Advocate General fairly conceded that there is no such observation or finding recorded by the Committee nor is there any communication of any controlling officers of the respondent speaking about the reputation of the respondent. In the absence of such material on record and even the observations about the conduct of the respondent, it can safely be held that such observations made by the Committee were only as a matter of routine and just to lend justification to the otherwise unsustainable order of compulsory retirement of the respondent.
16. Applying the ratio of law laid down above to the facts of the instant case, resort to the practice which has been followed by the State in directing the compulsory retirement of the petitioner is neither warranted nor justified. Such a practice cuts at the very root of the basic tenets and the elements of the age-old adage and axiom of law that a person accused of an offence is presumed to be innocent unless and until his guilt has been proved. The State has applied this principle in the reverse, perhaps, labouring under the belief that the maxim of law is that every person is presumed to be guilty unless and until he proves his innocence. It is only on the culmination of the trial that if the charges are proved against the accused and, as a consequence thereto, he is convicted and sentenced, that such an opinion can be framed. The whole exercise has been conducted on the basis of the involvement of the petitioner in criminal cases. If the contention, as propounded by the respondents, that the involvement of the petitioner came into limelight in a case or cases and, therefore, he was shown the door is accepted, the meaning, that will flow from it, is that a presumption will be drawn against each public servant facing the charges of corruption that in the ultimate analysis, he will be convicted for the offence(s) levelled against him, as a corollary to which, he will lose his service. Such hypothesis or supposition cannot be countenanced in law and, had it been so, it would have formed the basic structure of the rule itself, that such acts of omission and commission will lead to the presumption that the employee has a doubtful integrity or conduct unbecoming of a public servant.
“13. While reviewing this case from the next angle for judicial scrutiny, i.e., want of evidence or material to reach such a conclusion, we may add that want of any material is almost equivalent to the next situation that from the available materials, no reasonable man would reach such a conclusion. While evaluating the materials, the authority should not altogether ignore the reputation in which the officer was held till recently. The maxim ‘nemofirutrepenteturpissimus’ (no one becomes dishonest all of a sudden) is not unexceptional but still it is a salutary guideline to judge human conduct, particularly in the field of administrative law. The authorities should not keep their eyes totally closed towards the overall estimation in which the delinquent officer was held in the recent past by those who were supervising him earlier. To dunk an officer into the puddle of “doubtful integrity”, it is not enough that the doubt fringes on a mere hunch. That doubt should be of such a nature as would reasonably and consciously be entertainable by a reasonable man on the given material. Mere possibility is hardly sufficient to assume that it would have happened. There must be preponderance of probability for the reasonable man to entertain doubt regarding that possibility. Only then there is justification to ram an officer with the label “doubtful integrity”.
18. Looking at the instant case from the above perspective, an important facet which cannot be lost sight of, is that a complete go bye has been given to the Regulation 226(2) of the J&K CSR read with the instructions buttressed to it in considering the compulsory retirement of the petitioner. These lay great emphasis and spell out the need and demand to consider the entire service record of the public servant available in the shape of APRs, service book, personal file giving the details of the complaints received against him from time to time and so on and so forth. While considering the desirability of the retention or otherwise of a public servant, whose conduct has come under a cloud, the criminal case or cases registered against him can be considered on the parapet and the bulwark of the chain of the documents/service particulars, as stated hereinbefore. But to say that an FIR can form the sole basis to retire a public servant compulsorily is neither in tune nor in line with the scheme and mandate of Article 226(2) of the J&K CSR read with the guidelines supra and the judicial pronouncements holding the ground. Taking such a view that an FIR only will form the basic structure of an order of compulsory retirement of a public servant will be repugnant and averse to the very concept and object of compulsory retirement. In order to attach a semblance of fairness to such an order, the entire service record of a public servant has to be assessed and evaluated. These cannot be skipped and shelved in formulating such an opinion. If these are disregarded and omitted in the matter of the accord of consideration to the case of the compulsory retirement of a public servant, the whole exercise will get vitiated under the colour of the non application of mind and the decision having been taken not on just grounds, but for a collateral purpose, and, to cap it all, how can the conduct of a public servant be put through the wringer when there is no definite material to substantiate so. The reputation of a public servant cannot be termed as doubtful and his conduct cannot be determined only on spoken words in the absence of any material on record or source to justify so. This is a fundamental flaw in the order issued against the petitioner, whereby he has been shown the door.
“……………v) In the meanwhtie the appointee approached the Hon'ble Court of J&K at Srinagar and a compromise was arranged by the Managing Director JKPCC Srinagar under order NO. 425-55 Dt: 22.5.2001 where in 8 increments were released in the favour of in-cumbent on compassionate grounds and entries made on the Service Book. The in-cumbent withdraw the case from Hon'ble High Court vide order No. 1462 Dtd: 24.5.2001. vi) From the records available it has been observed that Mr. Mohd Shaft Shah Asstt. Manager has sought permission from Managing Director JKPCC Ltd. Jammu, to undergo degree AMIE in Civil Engineering through correspondence on his own expenses in the Institute of Engineering, India Ltd, Calcutta, while as completion of degree in-cumbent approached Works Minister, J&K/Chairman, JKPCC for promotion as Manager Civil. The Hon'ble Chairman has issued approval in favour of in-cumbent vide Chairman JKPCC order No. PS/M/4152-53 dated 20-07-2002.
The report based on the information of available records is being submitted to the Managing Director, JKPCC, Ltd., Jammu, for further necessary action in regard to establishment of the genuineness of the certificates produced by the in-cumbent.
20. The aforesaid report has not been considered by the Committee to find out whether or not there is any substance in the allegations leveled against the petitioner in the F.I.Rs registered against him, which states that the degrees obtained by the petitioner are fake and forged.
21. The facts in the present case are eloquent. The petitioner has appended with the writ petition ‘Annual Performance Reports’ wherein and whereunder his achievements, have been judged/evaluated from time to time by his superiors. For the periods 2005/06, 2006/07 & 2007, 08, the petitioner has been rated as an official whose work has been Excellent/Good/satisfactory. Annexure (C) attached to the petition is a communication of the Deputy General Manager, JKPCC Ltd., Kashmir, addressed to the Deputy General Manager, Administration, JKPCC Ltd., Jammu, which reveals that the APRs of the petitioner, as these relate to the years 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11, along with the Integrity Certificate, have been forwarded to the addressee for necessary action at his end.
22. The aforementioned Annual Performance Reports have been shelved. These have escaped the scrutiny of the Committee. It appears to have been done with an ultimate aim of showing the petitioner the exit and, had these reports been considered, the conclusion would have been otherwise. The enunciation of law, signifies that registration of FIR or pendency of criminal case(s), cannot form the edifice for retirement of an employee compulsorily when his APR entries are good and integrity is portrayed in the APRs as satisfactory not to mention as excellent. Reference in this regard may be made to S. Ramachandra Raju v. State of Orissa, 1994 Supp (3) SCC 424 : AIR 1995 SC 111; Jugal Chandra Saikia v. State of Assam, (2003) 4 SCC 59; State of J&K v. Janak Singh, 2010 (4) JKJ 89 [HC]; Rajendra Prasad Verma v. Lieutenant Governor (NCT of Delhi), (2011) 10 SCC 1; State of J&K v. Satish Chander Khajuria vide order dated 07.10.2016 passed in LPASW No. 122/2016 in which the SLP has been dismissed by the Supreme Court.
23. The argument of the learned counsel for the respondent that the principles of natural justice cannot be invoked by a public servant in the aid of assailing an order of compulsory retirement and that such an order does not amount to a punishment, is based on the sound principles and canon of law, but to say that such an order can be passed by shunning the material on the basis of which such an order can be passed in terms of the rules, regulations and the law governing the subject, is a spurious and a contrived argument. Such an assertion is devoid of merit and does not have the legs to stand upon.
24. Viewed in the context of all that has been said and done above, merely that cases have been registered against the petitioner by the Vigilance Organization (VOK) cannot form the basis of retiring him compulsorily, as a corollary to which the impugned order bearing No. 36/2015 dated 30-06-2015, issued by the respondent No. 3 - the Managing Director, J&K Projects Construction Corporation Ltd. Srinagar, is, quashed. Respondents are further directed to reinstate the petitioner and allow him to work on the post, which he was holding at the time of passing of the order of his compulsory retirement with all consequential service benefits.

References: Art. 226
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