ANKUR SANGWAN Vs. UNION OF INDIA & ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 10.03.2016 1. The petitioner had applied as a candidate for the post of Constable in the Railway Protection Force (in short 'the RPF') in response to an advertisement issued in the year 2011. Vide letter dated 1.10.2014, the petitioner was informed that he had been provisionally selected as a Constable in the RPF and on successful completion of training, subject to fulfilment of other conditions, he shall be issued a call letter. The petitioner was also directed to report for training on 01.11.2014. The training period was to last for 6 -7 months. However, during the course of the training, on 04.5.2015, the respondent/RPF had issued a notice to show cause to the petitioner, informing him that at the time of reporting for training, he had submitted an Attestation Form dated 25.5.2014, and an Affidavit dated 15.10.2014, affirming inter alia that he had never been arrested and/or prosecuted or kept under detention, whereas they had received a police verification report from the Senior S.P. Janpad, Meerut, U.P. which had revealed that a case had been registered against him at Sadarpur, UP Police Station (Crime Case No. 307/2012), under Sections 323/324/504/506/498 -A of IPC and Section 3/4 of Dowry Prohibition Act. Intimating the petitioner that the aforesaid facts had been suppressed by him and he had furnished a false declaration to the effect that he had never been arrested and /or prosecuted or kept under detention and that no case had been registered against him, he was called upon to submit a reply as to why should he not be discharged from training and his selection be cancelled for suppression of facts and on account of furnishing a false declaration.

(2.) Though a reply was submitted by the petitioner to the Memorandum issued by the respondents, it is not on record. Learned counsel has produced the relevant records and he hands over a copy of the reply submitted by the petitioner. In his reply submitted on 06.5.2015, the petitioner had stated that no doubt a FIR had been registered on the complaint of his sister -in -law, wherein he had been named, but after the investigation was conducted, he had not been named in the charge sheet. He had further clarified that he had not been arrested by the police at any stage and, for this reason, he remained under the bona fide impression that the said information was not required to be furnished. Resultantly he did not specifically state so in the Affidavit dated 01.11.2014. The aforesaid document is taken on record.

(3.) Upon receiving the petitioner's reply to the notice to the show cause, the respondents proceeded to issue the impugned Memorandum dated 15.6.2015, informing him that since he had admitted that a case was registered against him in the year 2012, though it was closed later, and the said information had not been furnished by him in the Attestation Form or the Affidavit, he was forthwith discharged from training and his selection to the post of Constable in RPF stood cancelled on the ground that he had contravened para 9 (f) of the Advertisement for the selection of Constables in the RPF/RPSF, para 1 of the Attestation Form and submitted a false declaration in the Affidavit. Aggrieved by the aforesaid discharge order, the petitioner has filed the present petition.