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| HC allows petition, imposes Rs 20000 cost upon respondents | | SSP challenges adverse remarks in APRs | | Jammu | Feb 26
Justice Nirmal Singh of J &K High Court Jammu wing in a petition filed by Sodagar Mal Khatotra, presently SSP, challenging the adverse remarks in his APRs made for the year 1999-2000, accepted the petition with a cost of Rs 20,000 to be paid by respondents to the petitioner. The APRs of the petitioner prior to the year 1998 shall be taken as the APRs of the petitioner for the disputed period 1998-1999 and 1999-2000 and after taking into consideration the same. Court directed Principal Secretary Home and Director General of Police J&K to release the consequential benefits, if any, in favour of the petitioner within a period of two months.
This landmark judgment has been passed in a writ petition filed by Mr. Sodagar Mal Khatotra, who was appointed as Dy SP in 1984 under SC category. The selection was held by the PSC and was promoted to the post of SP in 1997 and SSP in 2001. The grievances of the petitioner are that his APRs for the year 1998-99 and 1999-2000 were wrongly initiated by the respondent, who was of his rank.
According to the Advocate JR Arora appearing for the petitioner during the course of arguments submitted that as per the rules the APRs of an officer of the rank of the SP can only be initiated by the DIG of police. He further submitted that the APRs of the petitioner for the year 1997-98 graded as “excellent” and before 1997-98 these were graded “good”. He further submitted that in 1998-99, the APRs of the petitioner were written in two parts .While in one such he was graded as “satisfactory” by one officer for six months and “below average” for six months by the respondent who was SP at that time and this was done with a malafide intention just to deny the petitioner benefit of his induction into IPS cadre.
Justice Nirmal Singh after hearing both the sides observed that the case of the petitioner is that before initiating the APRs for the year 1998-99 and 1999-2000, the APRs for the previous years were outstanding and subsequently also the performance of the petitioner has remained satisfactory and that is why he was promoted to the post of SSP in October 2001. It is admitted case of the parties that as per rules the APRs of the officers of the rank of SP are to be initiated by DIG. It is also admitted case of the parties that petitioner as well as respondent No 3 working as SP even though respondent NO 3 was posted as Commandant and petitioner was posted as Deputy Commandant in the Battalion.
While allowing the petition Justice Singh further observed that the petitioner, as indicated, has taken a specific plea that his APRs for the period aforementioned have been wrongly initiated by the respondent No 3 just to debar the petitioner from his legitimate right of consideration for induction into IPS cadre. The said respondent has been arrayed as respondent by name and therefore, it was incumbent upon the said respondent to file counter to rebut the assertions of the petitioner as no counter has been filed in this regard by the said respondent, therefore, this shows that the said respondent has initiated the APRs of the petitioner with malafide intention so that the petitioner may be debarred from consideration to IPS cadre. The APRs of the petitioner initiated by the respondent No 3 and reviewed, approved by the competent authority for the period in dispute, therefore, cannot stand. At this stage no officer will be available to initiate and review the APRs of the petitioner for the disputed period; therefore, the APRs of the petitioner prior to 998 are to be taken into consideration. With these observations Court allowed the petition and imposed cost of Rs 20000 upon respondents.
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