- (1.) The petitioner is a judicial officer and working as Civil Judge (Senior Division) cum Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate No. 2 Kekdi, District Ajmer. While he was posted in Behror and was discharging duties for the alleged period of working in the year 2010, a complaint was made by one Smt. Rameshwari @Ramesh Devi, R/o. Panchkula, Haryana dated 30/07/2010 to the High Court stating therein inter -alia that her daughter -in -law Smt. Suman lodged FIR No. 494/2009 with Police Station Behror for offence u/Ss. 498A and 406 IPC and her son Kuldeep Yadav, husband of her daughter -in -law Smt. Suman was residing at New Zealand. She implicated her another son (Navdeep Yadav), her brother -in -law along with her father -in -law and mother -in -law as accused persons knowing it fully well that her son Navdeep Yadav, who indisputably was living separately and working in ICICI Bank and was never in association with her daughter -in -law and on a complete false and fabricated facts complaint was made by her but because of influence of her father Rohitash Yadav, Advocate practicing in Behror and on his persuasion, no indulgence was granted to them and compelled to surrender before the ACJM Behror, the present petitioner on 15/03/2010 along with 'stridhan' but because of the insistence of the complainant, the present petitioner who was officer posted at the relevant point of time granted police remand of 5 days on 16/03/2010 to her in -laws i.e. father - Sukhram Yadav and mother - Smt. Rameshwari W/o. Sukhram Yadav, who also surrendered. By abusing his power, the judicial officer exercised his judicial discretion and granted police remand in their case of 4 days, which was extended for 7 days without any justification under Sec. 167 of the Code and without loss of time, a charge -sheet was submitted for offence u/Ss. 498A and 406 IPC while granting short dates and charges were framed on 29/06/2010. No local lawyer agreed to defend them and they were forced to bring the lawyer from out station and apart from incurring expenses, they were also put to mental stress. The said complaint was placed before Hon'ble the Chief Justice on 01/02/2012 and Hon'ble the Chief Justice issued directions to the Registrar (Vigilance) for recording the statements, who thereupon recorded the statements of Sukhram Yadav, Laxman Singh and Rajendra Kumar on 22/08/2012 and submitted its report to Hon'ble the Chief Justice. Hon'ble the Chief Justice after looking to the nature of conduct, ordered for initiation of departmental enquiry against the present petitioner under Rule 17 of the Rajasthan Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1958 for short, the "Rules 1958" and nominated Hon'ble Mr. Justice P.K. Lohra as Enquiry Judge on 25/02/2013. Thereafter, a Memorandum dated 30/03/2013 along with other Statements of Allegations came to be served upon the petitioner.
(2.) In reference to the allegations leveled against the officer, he submitted his reply on 18/04/2013 and prayed for his exoneration. On 12/07/2013, the officer was afforded opportunity of hearing by the Enquiry Judge and after affording reasonable opportunity of hearing as prescribed under the scheme of holding enquiry under Rule 17 of Rules 1958, the Hon'ble Enquiry Judge concluded the enquiry and submitted its report to Hon'ble the Chief Justice on 18/07/2013. As per report of enquiry, petitioner was exonerated from Charge No. 3 but as regards Charges No. 1 and 2, the same were found established against him.
(3.) Report of the Enquiry Judge was placed before the Full Court and the Full Court in its meeting held on 28/07/2013 after detailed deliberations on the relevant aspect involved and having regard to the nature of charges proved, the House resolved to impose penalty of stoppage of two annual grade increments without cumulative effect and the penalty inflicted upon the petitioner was communicated to him vide order dated 05/08/2013. The petitioner preferred departmental appeal under sub -rule (2) of Rule 23 of Rules 1958 but the Hon'ble Chief Justice vide order dated 17/03/2015 observed that no appeal was maintainable and officer was communicated vide letter dated 14/05/2015 regarding rejection of the appeal, which became the subject -matter of challenge in the instant writ petition.;