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SC dismisses High Court plea

CHANDIGARH: Just about five months after the Punjab and Haryana High Court on the judicial side reversed its own orders on the administrative side to order the reinstatement of an Additional District and Sessions Judge, the Supreme Court has dismissed a special leave petition filed against the judgment.

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Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 16

Just about five months after the Punjab and Haryana High Court on the judicial side reversed its own orders on the administrative side to order the reinstatement of an Additional District and Sessions Judge, the Supreme Court has dismissed a special leave petition filed against the judgment.

The appeal against Haryana and judicial officer Sanjeev Jindal was filed in the Supreme Court by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. After hearing senior counsel for the High Court and senior advocate Puneet Bali for the judicial officer, the Bench of Justice SA Bobde and Justice Deepak Gupta extended by four weeks the time to implement the directions given in the impugned order.

Allowing Jindal’s plea filed through Bali, the High Court Bench of Justice AB Chaudhari and Justice Kuldip Singh had, in the order dated August 29 last year, directed the petitioner’s reinstatement on his original post from where he was compulsorily retired by an order dated August 13, 2012. For the purpose, the Bench had set November 30 last year as the deadline.

Appearing before the Bench for the officer, Bali had assailed the impugned action of the respondents in punishing him for alleged misconduct of granting regular bail to an accused. An anonymous complaint was received by the High Court, alleging that the petitioner had passed the order for oblique motives.

The Registrar (Vigilance) then submitted his report, stating that the order granting bail appeared to be mala fide. As a result, the petitioner was directed to furnish his explanation.

Bali averred that it was a judicial order and the accused was ultimately acquitted by the same Judge who gave preliminary inquiry report as Registrar (Vigilance), showing perversity on the part of the respondents in punishing the petitioner by retiring him compulsorily from service.

Bali had added that perusal of the inquiry report clearly showed that the inquiry officer practically, and for all purposes, acted as appellate authority over the order granting regular bail. He gave reasons as to why the findings of the fact recorded in the order of granting bail were not correct.

“But the same were correct and that is why the accused was finally acquitted by the Sessions Court,” Bali had contended. The Bench had asserted that the inquiry officer did not consider the circumstances to find whether judicial discretion exercised by the petitioner to grant regular bail to a woman was justified.

“According to us, whether the order was justified or not could not be the subject matter of a finding by an inquiry officer unless the same is found to have been made with mala fide intention, for extraneous consideration of for corruption. But there is neither any finding, nor evidence to that effect,” the Bench had added.

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