Withholding individual marks after clearing supplementary exams constitutes double jeopardy if departmental punishment was already served.

The petitioner, a Sub-Inspector appointed in 2018, was apprehended for cheating (carrying a chit) during the IPC paper of his 1st Semester training examination at the Police Training Academy in July 2018

Consequently, he faced a departmental proceeding and was awarded a punishment of stoppage of increment for two years (equivalent to three black marks)

While he subsequently passed the 2nd Semester and a Supplementary 1st Semester Examination in 2023, the respondents marked him only as "Passed" without awarding specific subject marks or Director/Principal assessment marks

This omission resulted in the petitioner being placed at the bottom of the seniority list (Seniority No. 751), adversely affecting his future promotion prospects

1. Whether after permitting the petitioner to reappear in the Supplementary Examination and declaring him ‘Passed’, the respondents could have withheld the actual marks and Director/Principal assessment marks contrary to the governing Police Order

The Court primarily applied the provisions of the Jharkhand Police Manual, specifically Rule 689(c) regarding seniority, read with Police Order No. 102

It strictly interpreted Clause 7 and Clause 9(घ) of Police Order No. 238/93, which stipulates that if a candidate is caught cheating in a PTC examination, they are to be awarded "zero" marks in that specific paper and face departmental proceedings, rather than being deprived of marks in all subjects

The Court also invoked the constitutional principle of Article 14 (Equality before Law) to prevent discriminatory treatment and the legal doctrine of Double Jeopardy, which prohibits punishing an individual twice for the same offense

The Court reasoned that under Clause 9(घ) of Police Order No. 238/93, the penalty for cheating is limited to awarding zero marks in the specific paper and initiating departmental action; debarring the petitioner from other examinations or withholding marks after he successfully cleared the supplementary exams was unauthorized

The Court observed that the petitioner had already served his departmental punishment (stoppage of increments), and withholding his marks constituted an illegal "double punishment" for the same act of misconduct

Furthermore, the Court found a violation of Article 14 because other candidates involved in similar misconduct during the same session had been allotted marks, a fact the State failed to deny in its Counter Affidavit

Therefore, the administrative action of marking the petitioner as merely "passed" without numerical values was found to be arbitrary and contrary to the established police guidelines

The Court allowed the writ petition and directed Respondent No. 2 (I.G. Training) and Respondent No. 4 (D.I.G. Personnel) to grant the petitioner specific marks for the First Semester Examination and Director/Principal Assessment marks. It further ordered the respondents to revise the seniority list of the 2018 Batch Sub-Inspectors accordingly within four weeks