Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Jan 3: The High Court has dismissed the appeal of the Government against the judgment of writ court whereby premature retirement of an Engineer in 2015 was quashed and directed his reinstatement in services.
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The Division Bench of Justice Sanjeev Kumar and Justice Sanjay Parihar upheld the writ court judgment whereby prematurely retiring an Engineer-Ahsan-ul-Haq on alleged corruption charges was quashed citing the action of Government was unsupported by material and directed his reinstatement in service with all consequential benefits.
The court recorded that mere registration of cases by the Anti Corruption body (VOK) could not form the sole basis for compulsory retirement as the competent authority failed to consider Haq’s entire service record or any cogent material suggesting doubt on his integrity.
The appeal was filed by the Government through the Commissioner Secretary, General Administration Department. His premature retirement was quashed by the writ in the year 2018 and the Government challenged the same by filing an appeal before the DB.
Engineer-Haq was placed under suspension after being named in FIR No. 24/2011 under the J&K Prevention of Corruption Act and in the year 2011 but he consistently resisted that he was falsely implicated due to a personal vendetta and that the investigation itself showed the tainted currency was recovered from a place not under his custody.
In November 2016, he was served an order of premature retirement along with a cheque of over Rs 2 lakh. Challenging this action, he approached the court by way of a writ petition.
The Division Bench noted that the Screening Committee and the competent authority relied exclusively on Haq’s involvement in the FIR while ignoring mandatory requirements under service rules.
The record revealed that apart from the aforesaid FIR, no other material worth the name has been considered and there was no effort to examine his service book, annual performance reports, or past conduct.
The bench rejected the committee’s observation that he enjoyed a poor public reputation, terming it a sweeping conclusion unsupported by evidence. “A sweeping statement, without being supported by any material worth the name, is not good enough to ruin somebody’s reputation”, the court observed.
The competent authority, the court added, has seemingly not applied its mind and has accepted the recommendations of the Committee without arriving at its satisfaction independently.
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