Delhi HC set asides compulsory retirement of NDMC engineer, orders reinstatement

New Delhi, Sep 28 (IANS) The Delhi High Court has set aside the compulsory retirement of a North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) engineer, reiterating that the entire service record of an officer must be considered before passing such an order.

“Before passing an order of compulsory retirement, the entire service record of the officer has to be taken into consideration, including the grading in the ACRs. The performance of the officer in the later years is of greater relevance than reliance on old and historical punishments,” observed a Bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Madhu Jain.

Quashing the 2019 order compulsorily retiring petitioner Suraj Prakash, the Justice Chawla-led Bench said, “Once the ACRs continuously record the integrity of the officer as ‘Beyond Doubt’ and grade him as ‘Outstanding’ or ‘Very Good’, the order of compulsory retirement, if based on events that occurred much prior to the decision, may stand vitiated.”

The Delhi High Court directed the immediate reinstatement of the petitioner with consequential service benefits, except for wages for the period he remained out of service.

Earlier, in June 2021, the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) had upheld the compulsory retirement of Sagta by the NDMC on October 31, 2019. In its decision, the Justice Chawla-led Bench noted that while the petitioner was penalised with a major penalty in 2000 and censured in 2005, his subsequent record reflected integrity “beyond doubt” and performance “very good” or “outstanding” -- a factor ignored by the screening/reviewing committee when recommending his compulsory retirement.

“The last penalty against the petitioner was a Censure in the year 2005, and the only major penalty was imposed against him in 2000. Apart from a departmental proceeding initiated in 2015, in which he was later exonerated, there was nothing adverse against the petitioner for an extended period from 2005 to 2019,” it observed.

Highlighting his service record, including promotion and grant of the second financial upgradation under the MACP Scheme, the Delhi High Court said, “These factors should also have been considered by the Screening/Reviewing Authority before taking the decision to compulsorily retire the petitioner. The proforma that has been placed on record before us, however, does not reflect any application of mind to the above factors. In fact, it does not even contain the recommendations of the Committee.”

The Justice Chawla-led Bench, referring to a circular dated July 2019, stated that the decision to compulsorily retire an officer should not be a shortcut to avoid disciplinary proceedings and should not be punitive in nature.

Ordering reinstatement of the petitioner in service with immediate effect, the Delhi High Court concluded, “Given the above factors, we are unable to sustain the Impugned Order passed by the learned Tribunal, and equally are unable to sustain the Order dated 31.10.2019 compulsorily retiring the petitioner from service. It ordered NDMC to issue all consequential reinstatement orders within four weeks and allow the petitioner to resume duties.

--IANS

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