Allahabad High Court Directs Promotion Of Judicial Officer With Retrospective Effect, Sets Aside Adverse Entry

The Allahabad High Court recently set aside the adverse entry made in the service record of judicial officer Sunil Kumar Singh-III and directed that he be promoted with retrospective effect from UPHJS 2015.

A bench comprising Justices Dr. Kaushal Jayendra Thaker and Rajeev Misra held that once the complaints based on which adverse entry is awarded are found untruthful, such adverse entry cannot be sustained.

“Once the complaints made against the petitioner were found untruthful, the very basis for awarding adverse entry to the petitioner has vanished. It would thus be a travesty of justice to maintain the adverse entry awarded to the petitioner even when the complaints made against him were found untruthful. In the light of above, the decision relied upon by the learned counsel for respondent 2 is clearly distinguishable and cannot be relied upon to sustain the adverse entry awarded to the petitioner.”

Factual Background:

Petitioner, Sunil Kumar Singh-III, was appointed as Civil Judge, Junior Division and was posted at Lucknow on 23.12. 2003. Petitioner had been awarded good/very good entries in his Annual Confidential Reports up till 2012-13. In 2013-2014, the then District Judge, Ghaziabad, who was elevated to the High Court had awarded an adverse entry on the ACR of the petitioner stating Integrity as “doubtful” due to various complaints against him.

Representations filed by the Petitioner against the adverse entry before the Administrative Committee of the High Court were rejected. Based on the rejection orders, the writ was dismissed. Subsequently, a review was filed on the ground that the Court had failed to consider that the fact of enquiry being conducted against the petitioner was never intimated to him. The Court allowed the review application and the case was re-argued on merits.

Counsel for Petitioner argued that as per Rule 5(2) of All India Services (Confidential Rolls) Rules, 1970 annual entry could have been awarded within the period while the District Judge was still in office or within a period of one month thereafter. However, the Reporting Officer had awarded the adverse entry seven months after handing over the charge of the office, i.e., seven months after being elevated to the High Court which was illegal.

The attention of the Court was drawn to a circular wherein it was provided that if “officer's integrity is doubtful or positively lacking, it may be so stated with all relevant facts, reasons(s) & supporting material.” In the present case, no reasons or supporting material was supplied for doubting the integrity of the petitioner and withholding his promotion during the pendency of the writ petition.

Further, it was contended that all charges against the petitioner were dropped in the enquiry proceedings. Thus, no adverse entry could be awarded based on the complaints which were found to be untrue.

Although counsel for Respondents agreed that the documents relied on for awarding adverse entry were never supplied to the petitioner, he defended the award of the adverse entry on the ground that the decision was taken by the reporting officer/ then District Judge and the same cannot be questioned in the light of the submissions made by the petitioner.

High Court Verdict:

The issue before the Court was whether in the facts and circumstances of the case, the adverse entry awarded to the petitioner was unsustainable in view of the note appended to column 1A of the circular dated 19.5.2007 or it could be sustained as per the decision of the Supreme Court in Rajendra Singh Verma (dead) through and Others vs. Lieutenant Governor (NCT of DELHI).

The Court observed that the circular laying down procedure for writing remarks in the ACR is mandatory and not directory in nature. The Court held that since the adverse entry on recorded “Integrity doubtful” as there are several complaints against the petitioner”, the mandate of the Circular was not followed.

The Court held that most of the complaints were consigned to records as nothing adverse was found against the petitioner, no adverse entry could be made on the basis of such complaints.

The Court placed reliance on the decision of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court in Rajvir Singh Vs. Hon'ble Allahabad High Court Alld. Thru. Registrar General & Ors wherein in similar facts, the Court observed

“Annual Character Roll entries in the Annual Confidential Report of an officer should be based on the overall assessment of his/her work and conduct. In this context, it is noticeable that the service record of the petitioner is unblemished ever since he joined the service as a judicial officer except for the adverse remarks entered in the Annual Confidential Report pertaining to the year 2011-12 which is under challenge in this petition.”

Accordingly, the petition was allowed with a direction to award promotion to the petitioner with retrospective effect.

“Since the petitioner was not promoted to HJS Cadre in the UPHJS 2015 on account of the pendency of the enquiry proceedings. Irrespective of above, the petitioner was promoted to UPHJS 2018 even though the enquiry proceedings came to be dropped against the petitioner only on 21.03.2019. We, therefore, direct to award promotion to the petitioner with retrospective effect i.e. UPHJS 2015,” held the Court.

Case title - Sunil Kumar Singh III vs. State of U.P. and Another [WRIT - A No. - 53425 of 2015]

Case Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (AB) 307

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