DHARMENDRA KUMAR Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Annexure-8 dated 11.11.2009 issued by the DIG (Personnel), Government of Bihar, is assailed in the present writ application. By virtue of this decision candidature of the petitioner for appointment on the post of Sub-Inspector of Police has been rejected or rescinded on the ground that the petitioner had made mis-declaration, if not wrong declaration with regard to his involvement in a criminal case. Petitioner was one of the successful candidates in terms of Advertisement No. 704 of 2004. An exercise for filling up the post of Sub-Inspectors of Police was carried out in the State of Bihar. All had been well for the petitioner except that when his police verification form was sent to the Superintendent of Police of the district of Bhojpur, it was brought to the notice of the respondent authority that petitioner had been made an accused in Udwant Nagar P.S. Case No. 209 of 2002 under Sections 341 and 323/34 of the Indian Penal Code. Charge-sheet was also submitted in the said case. In other words, petitioner was an accused in a criminal case but this fact was not disclosed by him in the police verification form, which is Annexure-9(i). Reference specially is to Column No. 7 of the said form. Submission of the counsel representing the petitioner is that the matter arose from the village politics when an FIR was registered in the year 2002 but by the time the occasion for filling the form for police verification came, some time in the month of July-August, 2008 petitioner was already exonerated of the charges by the trial court. The decision of the trial court is dated 30th April, 2008 and has been brought on record as Annexure-4. He contends therefore that on the date when he filled up the application for police verification there was no mis-declaration as an acquittal by the court amounts to a clean chit for him for all practical purposes. It was not his intent to suppress or not disclose the fact but this intervening circumstance and development surely weighed in the mind of the petitioner to make a declaration that he is not an accused any more.

(2.) Counsel thereafter also submits that since there was no lack of intent on the part of the petitioner, his success in the recruitment on the post, cannot be taken away for a so-called omission of the kind, which is being pointed out against him in the impugned order of the DIG. His stand is that petitioner has not made any mis-declaration. He submits that in a case where a person was acquitted on the basis of compromise on criminal charge, he was allowed to be appointed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, taking a broader view of the situation as well as applying the principle of reformation in favour of that candidate. The case in question brought to the notice of the Court is Commr. of Police & ORs. vs. Sandeep Kumar, 2011 2 PLJR(SC) 196.

(3.) The Court is tempted to quote paragraphs 12 to 17 for the reason that approach to such problems are reflected not only from the wisdom of the Supreme Court but even in the English decision from where we borrow liberally.