Punjab and Haryana High Court reinstates a civil judge who was dismissed from service because of negative comments about him, stating there is no evidence on record.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has reinstated a Civil Judge who was dismissed due to negative comments about him. The Court was reviewing a petition from the Judge asking to remove these negative remarks and grading. A Division Bench, including Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Sudeepti Sharma, stated that there was no evidence showing that the complainant was harmed by the delay in sending the necessary appeal. They concluded that the findings against the Judge were based on incorrect information.

The petitioner started as a Civil Judge-cum-Judicial Magistrate in Jalandhar in 1997. He received satisfactory or average ratings without proper evaluation of his work. In 2008, he was promoted to Additional Civil Judge (Senior Division) and assigned to Balachaur. Throughout his career, his integrity was consistently rated as good by the Administrative Judges, but negative remarks appeared in his 2008-2009 performance review. However, there were no negative comments in the 2009-2010 review, and he was never informed of any actions that might have raised doubts about his integrity during the 2008-2009 evaluation.

In 2015, he requested copies of written or oral complaints about his work and behavior as a judicial officer, focusing on issues related to his integrity, promoting groupism in the bar, and not following the law. He received four complaints in response. He also got a negative Annual Confidential Report (ACR) for 2008-2009 that included adverse comments about his integrity. He then filed a request to remove these negative remarks and also challenged the average ratings in his ACRs for 2007-2008 and 2009-2010. However, the Vigilance Committee rejected his requests. As a result, the High Court ordered a major penalty against him, leading to his dismissal. After hearing the arguments, the Court noted that the key testimony from witness PW-5 Moti Lal cleared the petitioner of guilt. Even during cross-examination, this witness did not make any negative statements about him. The Court concluded that the allegations of misconduct against the petitioner were not substantiated and did not require a response from him.

The findings against the current petitioner in Charge No. 1 are weakly supported. Unless the Court’s Reader provides clear evidence that the petitioner was told to skip making a report, it cannot be concluded that the petitioner intended to delay the statutory appeal for up to ten months. The Court noted that the charge against the petitioner involves claims that he issued 17 notices under the Punjab Courts Act to the Reader of his Court, resulting in fines of Rs. 5,000 for each notice, totaling Rs. 85,000. As a result, the High Court accepted the petition, canceled the dismissal order, and reinstated the petitioner.

Cause Title- Sangeet Pal Singh v. State of Punjab and Another (Neutral Citation: 2024:PHHC:141760-DB) Appearance:
Petitioner: Senior Advocate D.S. Patwalia and Advocate Rishu Bajaj.
Respondents: Sr. DAG Maninder Singh, Senior Advocate Gaurav Chopra, Advocates Ranjit Singh Kalra, and Mona Yadav.