Allahabad HC Upholds Constable's Reinstatement: Criminal Case Registered in Youth, Acquitted on Compromise, Cannot Be Ground for Mechanical Exclusion
A Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court dismissed the State of U.P.'s appeal, affirming reinstatement of a constable removed over a criminal case he likely did not know was pending at the time of his recruitment.
The Allahabad High Court's Division Bench of Justice J.J. Munir and Justice Indrajeet Shukla has dismissed a special appeal filed by the State of Uttar Pradesh challenging a single judge's order that reinstated a police constable who was removed from service twenty days after joining his post. The constable, Janmesh Kumar, had been selected and appointed at Aligarh, transferred for training to Firozabad, and then summarily removed on the ground that a criminal case had been pending against him which he did not disclose in his recruitment affidavit. The Division Bench, in a judgment delivered by Justice J.J. Munir, held that the authorities had acted mechanically, that the petitioner had in all likelihood been unaware of the criminal case when he applied, and that even if he had known, the nature of the offences and his age at the time would not have justified cancellation of his appointment.
The Constable's Appointment and Abrupt Removal
Janmesh Kumar was selected as a Constable in the Civil Police in a selection held at District Aligarh and was subsequently appointed at Aligarh. He was transferred to Firozabad for training along with other selected candidates vide an order of the Police Headquarters, Allahabad dated 8 August 1997. He joined at Firozabad on 8 October 1997 and was assigned Constable No. 759.
Twenty days after joining, the petitioner was removed from service. The ground was that a criminal case had been pending against him before his selection and appointment, and that he had not disclosed this in his recruitment affidavit. The order rescinding his appointment was passed by the Police Headquarters, Allahabad on 31 January 1998. A subsequent representation was rejected by the Superintendent of Police, Firozabad on 24 March 2001.
The criminal case in question was Crime No. 88 of 1994, registered at Police Station Dibai, District Bulandshahr under Sections 147, 148, 323, 504, and 325 of the Indian Penal Code. A separate case, Crime No. 932 of 1995 under Sections 147, 148, 149, 323, and 325 I.P.C. at the same police station, also figured in the record. The petitioner had been acquitted by the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Anupshahr, District Bulandshahr on 19 September 1997 on the basis of a compromise between the parties. His date of birth, as per his High School mark-sheet, was 5 July 1976, placing him in the eighteenth year of his life when Crime No. 88 of 1994 was registered.
The Single Judge's Order and the State's Challenge
Janmesh Kumar approached the Allahabad High Court by way of Writ-A No. 3021 of 2001. Justice Sabhajeet Yadav allowed the writ petition on 10 May 2013, quashing both the order dated 31 January 1998 passed by the Police Headquarters, Allahabad and the order dated 24 March 2001 passed by the Superintendent of Police, Firozabad. The petitioner was directed to be reinstated with continuity of service, though without back-wages.
The single judge relied on a Bench decision of the Allahabad High Court in Awadhesh Kumar Sharma v. Union of India and others, 2000 (2) AWC 1073, which had held that upon acquittal, a person must be deemed never to have been involved in the criminal case, since judgments of courts operate retrospectively. The single judge held that this binding precedent completely covered Janmesh Kumar's case and that the foundation for his removal had ceased to exist.
The State of U.P. and the police authorities filed Special Appeal No. 1992 of 2013 before the Division Bench, contending that the non-disclosure of a pending criminal case in a recruitment affidavit rendered the petitioner per se unfit for appointment to the police force. The Standing Counsel further argued that even if disclosed, the petitioner would have been disqualified, and that an acquittal on compromise does not efface the stigma attached to involvement in a criminal case.
Was the Petitioner Aware of the Pending Case?
The Division Bench undertook a careful factual analysis before addressing the legal questions. It noted that the petitioner's date of birth was 5 July 1976, making the year 1994, when Crime No. 88 of 1994 was registered, the eighteenth year of his life. The court observed that the exact date of registration of the FIR was not clear from the record, making it impossible to say with certainty whether the petitioner was a juvenile at the time the case was registered. However, the bench found it likely that when the petitioner filed his affidavit of non-involvement on 24 July 1997, he was unaware of the pendency of the case.
The petitioner's case was that he came to know of the criminal case only two to three days before the compromise was entered into, which led to his acquittal on 19 September 1997. The Division Bench accepted this version as credible, given the petitioner's age at the time of registration of the FIR and the circumstances of the case. The bench placed the burden squarely on the State: if the respondents wanted to attribute knowledge of the pending case to the petitioner at the time he applied, they were obliged to bring on record material showing that he had applied for bail, participated in investigation, or otherwise appeared in the proceedings of Crime No. 88 of 1994 well before 1997. No such plea was raised in the counter affidavit, and no such material was placed before the court.
The bench also observed that the offences involved — under Sections 147, 148, 149, 323, 504, and 325 I.P.C. — were all compoundable. It was for this reason that the learned Magistrate had accepted the compromise and passed a judgment of acquittal on that basis. The court held that “the petitioner did not deliberately suppress from the respondents the factum of the registration of a criminal case.”
Government Order Dated 28 April 1958 and the Rejection of Mechanical Exclusion
The Division Bench then turned to the broader legal question: even if the petitioner had been aware of the pending case, would non-disclosure have mandated cancellation of his candidature? The bench answered in the negative, grounding its reasoning in the Government Order dated 28 April 1958 issued by the State of Uttar Pradesh on the verification of character and antecedents of government servants before their first appointment.
The Government Order, as reproduced in the judgment, lays down that the character of a candidate for direct appointment must be such as to render him suitable in all respects for the service or post to which he is to be appointed. It specifically provides that a conviction need not of itself involve the refusal of a certificate of good character, and that the circumstances of the conviction must be taken into account. Where conviction occurs during childhood, the entire circumstances and the candidate's subsequent conduct must be considered. The Order further establishes a detailed process involving the District Magistrate, the Superintendent of Police, and the C.I.D. for character verification of direct recruits to the police.
The bench found that this Government Order embodies a policy of individualised assessment, not blanket disqualification. It held that the Order clearly applied to police recruits by virtue of paragraph 3(e)(i). A heinous or serious offence involving moral turpitude would be disentitling unless subsequent proceedings established complete innocence. Offences that are trivial or not so trivial, and cases of false accusation where nothing was established against the person, are to be assessed by the District Magistrate with reference to all circumstances. The mere registration of a case not involving moral turpitude does not disqualify a person from police employment.
How the Supreme Court's Precedents Applied
The Division Bench drew on three Supreme Court decisions to reinforce this position. In Commissioner of Police and others v. Sandeep Kumar, (2011) 4 SCC 644, a candidate for Head Constable (Ministerial) had denied involvement in any criminal case in his application form, when in fact an FIR under Sections 325/34 I.P.C. had been registered against him and subsequently compromised. The Supreme Court held that the cancellation of his candidature was illegal, observing that young people often commit indiscretions which ought to be condoned, and that the omission to disclose was likely born of fear of automatic disqualification rather than deliberate concealment. The offence was not of a serious nature like murder, dacoity, or rape, and a lenient view was warranted.
In Ram Kumar v. State of U.P. and others, (2011) 14 SCC 709, the Supreme Court set aside the cancellation of a constable's selection where the appointing authority had acted mechanically — treating non-disclosure as automatically fatal without examining whether the candidate was suitable for service with reference to the nature of the suppression and the nature of the criminal case. The Supreme Court held that it was the duty of the appointing authority under the Government Order dated 28 April 1958 to satisfy itself on the question of suitability, not to cancel the candidature on a mechanical application of a rule against false affidavits.
The bench then addressed the comprehensive guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in Avtar Singh v. Union of India and others, (2016) 8 SCC 471, which the Division Bench described as laying down far-reaching principles. Among the principles relevant to this case: if the criminal case was pending but not known to the candidate at the time of filling the form, the appointing authority must take a decision after considering the seriousness of the crime; before a person is held guilty of suppressio veri or suggestio falsi, knowledge of the fact must be attributable to him; and where the suppression relates to a trivial matter which, if disclosed, would not have rendered the candidate unfit, the employer may in its discretion condone the lapse.
The Division Bench held that the principles in Avtar Singh, though more definitive, do not detract from the broad approach in Sandeep Kumar, which it found squarely applicable to Janmesh Kumar's case.
The Authorities' Mechanical Approach Rejected
The bench examined the order dated 24 March 2001 passed by the Superintendent of Police, Firozabad on the petitioner's representation and found it deficient. The Superintendent had simply stated that the circumstances which led the Police Headquarters to stop the petitioner's recruitment and training had not changed, warranting no reconsideration. The Police Headquarters' own orders had been premised on the assertion that the petitioner had knowingly suppressed the pendency of the criminal case.
The Division Bench held that this approach was “far from what the law would countenance in such a situation.” Neither the Police Headquarters nor the Superintendent of Police had engaged with the petitioner's actual circumstances: his age when the case was registered, the compoundable nature of the offences, the absence of moral turpitude, or the fact that no material had been placed on record to show that the petitioner had any knowledge of the pending case when he applied for recruitment.
The bench reiterated that even on the hypothesis that the petitioner had been aware of the pending case when he applied, the nature of the allegations and the totality of circumstances would not have justified cancellation of his candidature. The FIR involved offences under Sections 147, 148, 149, 323, 504, and 325 I.P.C., none of which constitute moral turpitude or a heinous crime of the order of murder, dacoity, or rape. The petitioner was at most a young man of around 21 years at the time of his recruitment, having been registered in the case when he was in his eighteenth year.
Outcome
The Division Bench dismissed Special Appeal No. 1992 of 2013 filed by the State of U.P. and the police authorities. The court expressed its respectful agreement with the conclusions of the learned single judge, Justice Sabhajeet Yadav, while adding different and additional reasons of its own. The single judge's order dated 10 May 2013 — quashing the orders dated 31 January 1998 and 24 March 2001 and directing the reinstatement of Janmesh Kumar with continuity of service — stands affirmed. No order as to costs was made.