YOGENDRA PRASAD BHAGAT Vs. STATE OF JHARKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is one of those cases referred by the learned Single Judge to the Division Bench for hearing and disposal, since the question regarding the invocation of Rule 74(b)(ii) of the Jharkhand Service Code, is involved.

(2.) THE petitioner was appointed as a Munsif in the Bihar Judicial Service in the year 1975 and joined at Siwan on 7th June, 1975. Thereafter, the petitioner was posted as Judicial Magistrate at Patna and was also promoted to the post of Sub -Judge at Patna. From Patna, the petitioner was posted as Sub -Judge at Naugachia from where he was transferred to Nawada and posted as the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate -cum -Special Judge -1 and was posted with the power of Assistant Sessions Judge.

(3.) APPEARING in support of the writ petition, Mr. Rajeev Lochan Sharma contended that since the petitioner had once been punished in the disciplinary proceedings and had been reverted to the post of Munsif, the decision to retire the petitioner compulsorily amounted to double jeopardy which could not be sustained. Apart from the above, Mr. Sharma also submitted that after the petitioner had been promoted to the post of Sub -Judge -cum -Addl. Chief Judicial Magistrate, the earlier defaults, if any, of the petitioner stood wiped out and the case of the petitioner was required to be considered on the basis of his performance after he was promoted Mr. Sharma submitted that after 1990, there was no allegation against the petitioner and he had been discharging his duties as a judicial officer with distinction and without any blemish. Mr. Sharma urged that the order impugned in the writ petition was not in keeping with the decision of the Hon ble Supreme Court in the case of All India Judges ' Association V/s. Union of India, - - - - .