Prem Chandra Thakur v. Central Industrial Security Force

1. Present review petition has been filed by CISF stating that this Court has allowed the prayer of the writ petitioner on compassionate grounds ignoring the fact that allowing cases of such nature would open Pandora’s REVIEW PET. 138/2021 2021:DHC:2733-DB Box as a consequence of which this Court would be flooded with litigations. It has further been averred that this Court while passing the impugned order perhaps did not realise that the above judgment would be treated as a ‘precedent’ by potential litigants and even earlier adjudicated matters would be appealed and remedies would be sought citing the present case.

2. Learned counsel for the applicant states that this Court has completedly ignored the fact the writ petitioner had criminal antecendants which he had purposefully suppressed at the time of joining the service.

3. He also states that this Court has failed to appreciate that writ petitioner was not a regular personnel of the CISF and hence, no departmental enquiry was reqruied to be held against him before terminating his services.

4. Upon a perusal of the impugned order this Court is of the view that it has not decided the matter on compassionate ground but has stated the law as it exists and then applied the same to the facts of the present case. It is also wrong to aver that this Court did not realize that the impugned judgement would be treated as a precedent by other litigants.

5. In the counter-affidavit filed by the applicant it had not been averred that the writ petitioner was not a regular personnel of the CISF, despite the averment in the writ petition that the petitioner after successful completion of his basic training had got a regular posting. In fact, it was also not stated in the counter affidavit that the writ petitioner was working as a probationer on the date of his termination.

6. Further, this Court has not ignored the fact that the writ petitioner had criminal antecedents. In fact, the Court has specifically dealt with the issue of suppression of criminal antecedents by the writ petitioner in accordance with the judgment of the Supreme Court in Avtar Singh Vs. UOI & Ors; (2016) 8 SCC 471. In any event, as this Court has held that the writ petitioner had been acquitted before filing of the application/verification form and the acquittal was not on technical ground but an acquittal on merits, the said ground even if taken into consideration would not make any difference.

7. Consequently, the present review petition is dismissed. MANMOHAN, J ASHA MENON, J SEPTEMBER 3, 2021 rn