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Showing contexts for: character verification in Pankaj Singh Tomar vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh on 9 September, 2024Matching Fragments
Per: Justice Anand Pathak
1. The present appeal under Section 2 (1) of the Madhya Pradesh Uchcha Nyayalaya (Khand Nyaypeeth Ko Appeal) Adhiniyam, 2005 is preferred by the appellant/petitioner being crestfallen by the order dated 27-07-2021 passed by learned Single Judge in Writ Petition No.10791 of 2018 whereby the writ petition filed by the appellant has been dismissed.
2. Precisely stated facts of the case are that in pursuance to an advertisement issued by the respondents in the year 2016, appellant applied for the post of Constable in the Police Department. He appeared in the examinations and declared as a select candidate. The appointment order has been issued and he has been posted in the unit of Superintendent, Rail, Bhopal. Thereafter, the process in relation to character verification took place and in that process it was found that the appellant suppressed the fact in relation to registration of FIR against him at crime No.148/2016 for offence under Sections 324, 323, 294, 506, 34 of IPC. Therefore, the candidature of petitioner to the post of Constable has been rejected by the respondents and he has been declared unfit for the services of Police Department.
3. Aggrieved by the rejection of candidature, appellant has preferred writ petition which was dismissed by learned Single Judge holding that appellant has given incomplete and misleading information in the character verification form as he did not mention the details of FIR registered against him on 25-10-2016. It is further held that since Police Department is a disciplined uniform force, therefore, any person with dubious background may not be suitable in the police department as a police constable is required to involve in maintenance of law and order situation. Therefore, appellant is before this Court.
4. It is the submission of learned counsel for the appellant that the Screening Committee did not consider the material aspect of the matter and rejected the character verification of the appellant while the fact remains that at the time of filling up of form of character verification on 14-02-2017, neither any charge-sheet was filed against the appellant nor any trial was pending consideration against him. Moreso, there was an enquiry report of DSP, Morena dated 22- 12-2016 in favour of appellant and only after filling up of form of character verification, trial Court took cognizance against the appellant and thereafter charge-sheet was filed in March, 2017. The plea of alibi taken by the appellant was supported with the statements of witnesses where he was working at the time of occurrence of incident.
8. It is further submitted that the Screening Committee did not consider each and every aspects of the matter and the evidence come on record and committed grave error in rejecting the candidature of appellant on the basis of registration of criminal case. On preferring writ petition, learned Single Judge also did not consider plight of the appellant and material aspects of the matter and dismissed the writ petition.
9. Learned counsel for the appellant refers the judgment of the Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of Avtar Singh Vs. Union of India and Others, (2016) 8 SCC 471 and submits that the said judgment talks about the objective consideration and once no objective consideration is shown by the departmental authority then it is for the Constitutional Court to invoke its jurisdiction for judicial review. He also relied upon the judgments of Division Bench passed in W.A.No.1954/2019 (Devendra Singh Gurjar Vs. State of M.P. and Others) dated 01-05-2020 as well as in W.A.No.55/2023 (Monu Singh Vs. State of M.P. & Ors.) dated 24-07-2024 wherein the issue in relation to failure of character verification has been dealt with and the Court directed the respondents to consider the case of appellant.