Allahabad High Court Upholds Dismissal Of Court Employee For Manipulating Convict's Age In Records To Make Him Eligible For Release

The Allahabad High Court recently upheld the dismissal of a court employee who was found guilty of manipulating the age of a convicted prisoner in the judicial record to enable him to claim the benefit of a government scheme for the release of elderly prisoners.

A bench of Justice Anish Kumar Gupta observed that manipulation of age in a judicial record amounts to serious misconduct as it constitutes "direct interference with the administration of justice".

The Court held that no lenient view could be taken in respect of such misconduct and dismissed the employee's writ petition challenging her dismissal from service.

The bench passed the order while dealing with the plea filed by Petitioner (Seema Sharma) challenging the October 2010 order passed by the Administrative Judge.

The said order had enhanced the punishment imposed on her by the District Judge, Muzaffarnagar, from stoppage of one increment for two years to dismissal from service.

Case in brief

Briefly put, the petitioner was initially appointed as a paid apprentice in the Muzaffarnagar judgeship on September 13, 1978. Her services were regularised as a Junior Clerk in 1983 and she was promoted as an Assistant Record Keeper in the year 1985.

The case against her pertains to the manipulation in the judicial record of 1977 Sessions Trial in which one Juber had been convicted for the offence of Murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment by a judgment passed in November 1978.

In January 2000, the State Government introduced a scheme for the release of prisoners who had undergone more than 3 years of imprisonment and were above 60 years of age.

For determining eligibility under the scheme, the prisoner's age was to be ascertained on the basis of the age mentioned in his statement recorded under Section 313 CrPC.

The original judicial record mentioned Juber's age as 19 years when his statement was recorded. However, in an answer to a questionnaire dated September 13, 2000, Petitioner-Sharma manipulated the record and mentioned his age as 38 years.

It was later found that the age of the prisoner recorded in the Section 313 CrPC statement had been manipulated.

A departmental charge-sheet was issued against the petitioner wherein it was alleged that she had interpolated the prisoner's age and issued an incorrect certificate mentioning his age as 38 years instead of 19 years.

The inquiry officer examined 9 witnesses during the departmental proceedings and then found her guilty. It was concluded that she had either carried out the manipulation herself or got it done through someone else with an ulterior motive.

After the inquiry, the District Judge, Muzaffarnagar, imposed the punishment of stoppage of one increment for two years under Rule 4(d) of the U.P. Subordinate Court Staff Punishment and Appeal Rules, 1976.

However, when Sharma challenged the punishment before the Administrative Judge, the appellate authority considered the charges serious and issued a show-cause notice proposing enhancement of the punishment to dismissal from service.

After considering her reply, the Administrative Judge, by an order passed in October 2010, enhanced the punishment to dismissal from service while dismissing her appeal.

Before the High Court, Sharma argued that she was not the only person who had access to the judicial record during the relevant period.

She also pointed out that she had been on leave on certain dates and that the record had also been transferred to different sections and courts for various purposes.

She further contended that no handwriting expert's opinion had been obtained to establish that she alone had carried out the manipulation.

High Court's observations

Rejecting her petition, the High Court noted that during the relevant period [July 6, 2000, and September 13, 2000] when the manipulation took place, the petitioner . was undisputedly in charge of the concerned record and was not on leave.

The Court also noted that she had issued the age certificate on September 13, 2000, mentioning the prisoner's age as 38 years, whereas the original record reflected his age as 19 years.

It observed that the manipulation was intended to enable the convict to claim the benefit of the government scheme by projecting himself as having attained the age of 60 years for the purpose of release from jail.

The Court also took note of the fact that the findings recorded by the inquiry officer had been affirmed by the disciplinary and appellate authorities.

The bench said that while exercising judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution, it could not sit in appeal over the findings of fact recorded in departmental proceedings.

Furthermore, the Court observed thus:

"...once the aforesaid findings of fact are there, whereby the petitioner has been found guilty of manipulation, this Court find that the said act of manipulation in the age in the judicial record, is a serious misconduct and which do not attract any sympathy because such manipulation in the judicial record is direct interference with the administration of justice and no lenient view could be taken for the said misconduct".

Against this backdrop, finding no illegality in the impugned orders, the Court dismissed the writ petition.