RAHUL Vs. UNION OF INDIA & ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) On the strength of being acquitted at the criminal trials, the petitioners question they not being appointed as Constables in the Railway Protection Force.

(2.) All petitioners successfully cleared the selection process to be appointed as constables in the Railway Protection Force but found employment eluding them when the department found that all of them withheld relevant information concerning their character and antecedents, in that, all of them did not disclose that they were accused of having committed penal offences. All the petitioners were acquitted at the criminal trial and suffice it to note that a criminal record of a person's past history is relevant to assess the person's trustworthiness and in matters relating to public service and especially when the person would carry arms it would be in the interest of the public that the person should be subjected to a strict scrutiny.

(3.) The four petitioners have a grievance concerning the same selection process which commenced in the year 2011. Clearing the written examination as also the physical endurance test the petitioners were required to fill in the attestation forms which had a column to disclose whether the candidate was an accused in any FIR or had or was facing a criminal trial and if yes, the particulars thereof. Against the applicable column all the petitioners wrote NO. All of them were given provisional employment requiring them to specifically depose on an affidavit that none of them was ever an accused in any FIR nor had faced a criminal trial. All of them deposed in the affidavit that none of them had ever been named as an accused for having committed any offence and none had faced a criminal trial.