Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Apr 27: High Court today upheld the writ court judgment quashing the Government order of retiring a Forest employee from his services compulsorily with the direction to the authorities to reinstate him.
The Forest Department challenged the writ court judgment whereby the compulsory retirement of Divisional Manager, State Forest Corporation (SFC) Division, Zangli, Kashmir, Reyaz Anwar Masoodi, was quashed with the direction to the authorities to grant him all consequential benefits within the specified period and get him back into the services.
“For all that has been narrated and discussed above, we hold that respondent could not be prematurely retired solely by reason of the fact of registration of the two FIRs in which he is one of the accused. Resultantly, we do not find any irregularity or illegality committed by the learned Single Judge in passing the impugned judgment. We are of the opinion that there is no merit in the present LPA. It, therefore, deserves to be dismissed”, Division Bench of Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey and Justice Puneet Gupta concluded.
“…The order is passed on the subjective satisfaction of the government and that the government shall have to consider the entire record of service before taking a decision in the matter. It hardly needs to be stated that subjective satisfaction is not to be arrived on the basis of imagination, but should be reached at on the basis of material which satisfies a rational mind”, reads the judgment.
Court said if there are no complaints received, no enquiries conducted, no adverse reports received from the CID about the reputation of the official, no irregularities committed by the employee in the matter of appointments, no failures reported in achieving fixed targets, no warnings and censures earned, then these would constitute factors relevant to be taken into account along with the APRs of the employee while forming the opinion in terms of Article 226(2) of the CSRs.
The Court has no option, therefore, available to it but to come to the conclusion that the report/opinion of the Screening Committee suffers from vice of non-application of mind and is, accordingly, rendered unreasonable and arbitrary. Consequentially, the Government order No.857-GAD of 2015 dated 30.06.2015 is equally rendered arbitrary.
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