Suppression of Criminal Antecedents Justifies Denial of Promotion but Not Termination of Existing Tenured Service

The respondent/petitioner was appointed as a Police Constable in 2003 and served for approximately ten years with a clean record.

In 2012, while in service, he applied for the post of Sub-Inspector (SI) via an intra-departmental examination.

In Column 12 of the attestation form, he failed to disclose a 1998 criminal case (Crime No. 800/1998 under Sections 447 and 456 IPC), which had ended in acquittal by compromise in 1999.

Upon discovery of this suppression during training in 2013, the department not only rejected his candidature for the SI post but also initiated a departmental enquiry leading to his termination from the original post of Constable in 2015.

The Writ Court set aside the termination from the post of Constable but upheld the rejection for the SI post; both parties appealed.

The court primarily applied the principles governing character verification and suppression of facts laid down by the Supreme Court in Avtar Singh v. Union of India (2016) 8 SCC 471, which mandates that while suppression is serious, the employer must exercise objective discretion based on the nature of the offence and the post.

It further relied on Pawan Kumar v. Union of India (2022) SCC OnLine SC 532, which establishes that suppression does not lead to axiomatic termination; the employer must consider the "suitability" and "objective criteria" rather than acting arbitrarily.

The Court reasoned that terminating him from a substantive post held for a decade due to a lapse in a subsequent application for a different post was deemed "erroneous," "illegal," and "too harsh."

For the post of Sub-Inspector, the Court held that the higher the responsibility (involving executive and statutory powers), the stricter the parameters for integrity.

Since the petitioner left the verification column blank despite having a criminal record, the employer had the right to assess his suitability for the higher post.

The Court noted that even if the original case was trivial or ended in compromise, the act of non-disclosure itself provides a valid ground for the employer to deny a new, more responsible appointment.

It held that the petitioner is entitled to reinstatement as a Constable with 25% back wages and all consequential benefits, as his removal was disproportionate given his decade-long clean service.

However, his claim for the post of Sub-Inspector was rejected due to the deliberate suppression of criminal antecedents in the specific verification form for that post.