Successful Candidate's Juvenile Record Not Ground To Deny Service As Police Constable: Rajasthan High Court

The division bench of Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Yogendra Kumar Purohit was hearing an intra court writ appeal preferred by the State challenging the order dated February 2, 2022 passed by a single judge bench of the High Court whereby candidature of the present respondent for the post of Police constable was accepted and State was directed to accord appointment to the petitioner with all consequential benefits.

The candidature of the respondent was rejected by the State on the ground that a criminal case was pending against him at which point of time, he was a juvenile within the meaning of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 (the Act of 2000).

In the said writ petition before the single judge, the respondent herein challenged the impugned notification on the ground that by virtue of the mandate of Section 24 (Removal of disqualification on the findings of an offence) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (the Act of 2015), the writ petitioner was entitled to protective umbrella against use of criminal antecedents in any future recruitment process.

The respondent further contended that on the date of passing of the impugned order, the case was under trial and he was not convicted for any offence.

The single judge bench held that Section 24 of the Act of 2015 includes in its ambit, the cases of juveniles, who have been convicted and protects such juveniles from any disqualification and thus, a juvenile, who is facing trial, stands on a better footing and would definitely be entitled to protective umbrella of Section 24 of the Act of 2015.

Hence, the respondent State preferred intra-court appeal challenging the judgement of single judge bench.

Before the division bench, Sandeep Shah, the AAG for the State contended that the respondent had applied for post of constable in the highly disciplined Police Force and that the department has absolute discretion to reject the candidature of a person having criminal antecedents.

It was further argued that the criminal case against the respondent was registered in the year 2011 and since the provisions of the Act of 2015 are not retrospective, the benefit of Section 24 of the Act of 2015 could not have been extended to protect the respondent against disqualification entailing from the pendency of a criminal case for the heinous offence of murder.

The division bench observed:

“A perusal of the language of Section 24 of the Act of 2015 and the corresponding provision in the Act of 2000, i.e. Section 19, would make it clear that the record of conviction of the child in conflict, cannot be preserved and has to be destroyed. As a direct consequence, any disqualification entailing from the conviction would have to be ignored and cannot act to the detriment of the child in conflict with law in any manner, which would include a selection process for public employment.”

Accordingly, the court upheld the judgement of the single judge bench and dismissed the appeal for being devoid of merit.

Advocate for Appeallants: Mr. Sandeep Shah, Senior Advocate-cum-AAG, assited by Mr. Nishant Bafna

Advocate for Respondents: Mr. Praveen Vyas

Case Title: State of Rajasthan & Ors. v. Bhawani Shankar Moorh

Coram: Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Yogendra Kumar Purohit

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