STATE OF PUNJAB AND ANOTHER Vs. EX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) (4th May, 2004) - This appeal under Clause X of the Letters Patent has been filed against judgment of learned Single Judge recorded in C.W.P. No. 5840 of 1992, dated August 28, 2001 vide which, Ex-Constable Jagraj Singh, the petitioner in the original lis, succeeded in his endeavour to quash order dated 4.5.1991 passed by the Senior Superintendent of Police, Amritsar, terminating his services by way of discharge, applying Rule 12.21 of the Punjab Police Rules, 1937 (for short 'the 1937 Rules').

(2.) Brief facts of the case, culminating into the filing of the present Letters Patent Appeal, reveal that the petitioner was recruited as a Constable in Punjab Police on 11.11.1989. It has been the case of the petitioner, as made out in the pleadings of the writ petition, that after completing training course, he was put in active duty in the police lines, Amritsar, as well as at other police stations. Before, however, he could complete the period of probation, he was discharged from service under Rule 12.21 of the 1937 Rules as, in the opinion of Senior Superintendent of Police, Amritsar, he was unlikely to prove an efficient police officer It has been the case of the petitioner that, in fact and in reality, the impugned order discharging him from service applying provisions of Rule 12.21 of the 1937 Rules, was on the basis of misconduct and, therefore, such an order could have been passed only after holding a regular departmental enquiry giving him an opportunity to prove his innocence.

(3.) The matter was contested by the appellant-State primarily on the basis that under Rule 12.21 of the 1937 Rules a Constable can be discharged, at any time, within a period of three years of his enrollment if the Constable is found unlikely to prove an efficient police officer. It was the case of the State that the order passed against the petitioner is innocuous.