Person seeking appointment as district court employee must have clean antecedents: Allahabad High Court

A person seeking appointment as staff of district courts should have impeccable character, high integrity and clean antecedents, the Allahabad High Court recently said..A Bench of Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Prashant Kumar emphasized that appointing someone whose antecedents are not clean would damage the prestige of the institution."At this point, it is pertinent to mention that a candidate seeking an appointment in the District Court judgeship should be of impeccable character and high integrity, and his antecedents should be clean and if a person whose integrity is doubtful or his antecedents are not clean is appointed, that can damage the institution inasmuch as if the Court records are misplaced or tampered which would cause immense prejudice to the litigants and also shake the confidence of the public in the judicial system which would eventually result in serious damage to the prestige of the institution," the order dated July 1 stated..The Court was hearing an appeal against a single-judge order that upheld the termination of a Group 'D' employee of the Etah District Court..The appellant had applied for a Group 'D' position in response to the advertisement dated October 27, 2022, issued by the High Court Recruitment Cell for the 2020-23 period. After successfully passing the examination and being selected for the position, the appellant received an appointment letter from the District Judge, Etah, and started work.Although he had submitted an affidavit at the time of joining stating that he had no pending criminal cases, police verification revealed that a case for offences under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) had been registered against him where he had been acquitted.Since High Court instructions in the advertisement specified that the discovery of a criminal case against a candidate would result in the cancellation of their appointment, the appellant's services were terminated..The appellant's counsel argued that no criminal case was pending against him when he was applying for the post and that he was unaware of the criminal case when swearing the affidavit. It was contended that the appellant had not concealed any information and that since the appellant had been acquitted, the charges and seriousness of the offences should have been reassessed..The counsel for the respondent argued that although the affidavit was sworn in May, the charge sheet had been prepared in January and the trial court had already taken cognizance of the case. It was contended that the nature of the charges and the fact of acquittal were irrelevant and since false information had been provided in the affidavit, the cancellation of the appointment was justified..The Court noted that it was clear the petitioner had full knowledge of the criminal case during the document verification process and had concealed this material fact when swearing the affidavit at the time of employment."In the present matter, the dispute relates to furnishing false information at the time of appointment. In a case of deliberate suppression of fact with respect to pending criminal case, such false information by itself will assume significance and an employer may pass appropriate order cancelling the candidature. If the criminal case was pending and known to the candidate at the time of filling up the form or swearing the affidavit, the concealing of the same may have adverse impact in the organisation," the Court noted..The Court while citing Rule 15 of the UP State District Court Service Rules, 2013 noted that no person will be appointed unless the appointing authority is satisfied that the candidate is of good character and fully suitable for the position. If any doubt arises regarding a candidate's suitability for appointment, the High Court's decision shall be final, it added.With these observations, the Court upheld the single-judge order and dismissed the appeal.Advocate Puneet Bhadauria appeared for appellant.Advocate Ashish Mishra appeared for respondent..[Read Order]