Rajasthan High Court - Jaipur
Satveer Mahar S/O Late Shri Kanaram vs Union Of India (2023:Rj-Jp:19507-Db) on 28 August, 2023
Bench: Augustine George Masih, Sameer Jain
[2023:RJ-JP:19507-DB]
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN
BENCH AT JAIPUR
D.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 3417/2022
Satveer Mahar S/o Late Shri Kanaram, Aged About 33 Years, R/o
Plot No. 39/8, Uit Colony, Bhagwan Ganj, Ajmer, Rajasthan.
----Petitioner
Versus
1. Union Of India, Through General Manager, North Western
Railway, Head Quarter Office, Jagatpura Road, Malviya
Nagar, Jaipur , Rajasthan
2. Divisional Railway Manager, North Western Railway,
Ajmer, Rajasthan.
----Respondents
For Petitioner(s) : Mr. Amit Mathur
HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SAMEER JAIN
Order
28/08/2023
(ORAL):
1. Challenge in this writ petition is to the order dated
20.01.2022 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Jaipur
Bench, Jaipur (for short, 'the Tribunal'), whereby an Original
Application preferred by the petitioner herein under Section 19 of
the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 challenging the order of
rejection of the candidature of the petitioner for appointment on
compassionate ground has been upheld on the ground that while
submitting the application and the attestation form, the factum of
three criminal cases having been registered against the petitioner
had not been disclosed.
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2. Learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the
factum of those three criminal cases having been registered,
although has not been mentioned, but those were when the
petitioner was a student and it was a trivial fight which had taken
place between the two groups. In all three cases for the major
offences, the petitioner had been acquitted and only for provision
under Section 147 of Indian Penal Code, he was found guilty and
convicted, there too the benefit of Probation of Offenders Act was
granted to him.
3. The contention of the learned counsel is that the petitioner,
who is seeking compassionate appointment on the ground that his
father died in harness, should have been given the benefit of the
Probation of Offenders Act and treating such a situation being
there, mere non-disclosure of the fact of there being some
criminal cases against the petitioner should not be a ground for
denying appointment when it is not the case of the respondents
that the petitioner does not fulfill the requisite norms. Reliance
has been placed by the learned counsel for the petitioner upon the
judgments of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the cases of (i) Ram
Kumar Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors., (2011) 14 SCC
709, (ii) Avtar Singh Vs. Union of India & Ors., (2016) 8
SCC 471 and (iii) Umesh Chandra Yadav Vs. Inspector
General and Chief Security Commissioner, RPF, Northern
Railway, New Delhi & Ors., 2022 SCC OnLine SC 299.
4. Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that in the light
of these judgments, discretion could have been exercised by the
respondents in favour of the petitioner ignoring the inadvertent
mistake on the part of the petitioner in non-disclosure of the fact
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of there being criminal cases registered against him, in which he
had been acquitted. He asserts that probably the petitioner, in the
light of acquittal, proceeded on the assumption that it was not
required to be disclosed in the attestation form. Prayer has, thus,
been made for setting aside the impugned order passed by the
Tribunal as also the impugned orders before the Tribunal.
5. We have considered the submissions made by learned
counsel for the petitioner and have gone through the order passed
by the Tribunal as also the pleadings, but are unable to accept the
contentions as raised by learned counsel for the petitioner.
6. It is not in dispute that a specific column was available in the attestation form calling upon the applicants to disclose the factum of there being any criminal case registered against the said applicant as also the fate thereof. Non-disclosure thereof is an admitted position and, therefore, the reason assigned for non- disclosure about the petitioner having been acquitted cannot be accepted. It has also come to light that it is during the police verification that the factum of there being three criminal case against the petitioner came to light and it is, therefore, that the things moved on. The intent, therefore, of the petitioner appears to be to take the benefit of non-disclosure of the factum of criminal cases having been registered against him.
The judgments on which reliance has been placed by the learned counsel for the petitioner would not be applicable to the case in hand as those were not the cases where there has been clear non-disclosure of the factum of the criminal cases, but the Hon'ble Supreme Court had interfered in exercise of its extraordinary jurisdiction coming to the conclusion on various (Downloaded on 11/11/2023 at 07:38:00 PM) [2023:RJ-JP:19507-DB] (4 of 4) [CW-3417/2022] aspects including the aspect of offence being trivial in nature, or having committed such an offence during young age.
7. The Tribunal has placed reliance upon the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of State of Orissa and Ors. Vs. Gobinda Behera (Civil Appeal No.893/2020) decided on 31.01.2020, while rejecting the claim of the petitioner. We are of the view that the said judgment clearly applies to the facts and circumstances of the present case and the ratio laid down therein would be fully applicable to the case in hand. Thus, the order passed by the Tribunal being in accordance with law and based upon proper appreciation of the facts and the pleadings, does not call for any interference by this Court.
8. The writ petition therefore stands dismissed. All pending applications stand disposed of.
(SAMEER JAIN),J (AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH),CJ Kamlesh Kumar/JKP-9 (Downloaded on 11/11/2023 at 07:38:00 PM) Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)