The Punjab and Haryana high court has refused to interfere with the Punjab director general of police’s (DGP) 2022 order of prematurely retiring an assistant sub-inspector, stating that it cannot infringe upon a competent authority’s right.
The bench of justice Jagmohan Bansal held that the appropriate authority may order to prematurely retire any officer if it is in the public interest. However, conditions, as spelt in the service rules, must be complied with.
As per the Civil Services (Premature Retirement) Rules, 1975, the order should be passed by the appropriate authority, the authority must be of the opinion that it is in the public interest to do so, the employee should be given prior notice in writing, the employee must have completed 25 years of qualifying service or attained 55 years of age and in the absence of three months’ notice, employee would be entitled to three months’ salary.
“The power to prematurely retire is an absolute right of the appropriate authority. The petitioner, by the date of passing impugned order, had already completed 25 years of service. Thus, it is evident that the respondent complied with all the attributes of Rule 3 of 1975 Rules, except service of three months’ notice. The petitioner is entitled to a salary of three months in the absence of notice,” it said while dismissing the plea.
The petition was from one Sukhpal Singh from Ludhiana, who was prematurely retired in April 2020 by the Ludhiana police commissioner. Subsequently, the appeal went up to the DGP level but was dismissed in 2022. In the plea, he had argued that the order was passed in a mechanical manner and in gross violation of principles of natural justice. The government counsel had submitted that if notice is not served upon the officer, he is entitled to three months’ salary. The petitioner was having very bad service record, thus, under compelled circumstances, he was prematurely retired.
{{/usCountry}}The petition was from one Sukhpal Singh from Ludhiana, who was prematurely retired in April 2020 by the Ludhiana police commissioner. Subsequently, the appeal went up to the DGP level but was dismissed in 2022. In the plea, he had argued that the order was passed in a mechanical manner and in gross violation of principles of natural justice. The government counsel had submitted that if notice is not served upon the officer, he is entitled to three months’ salary. The petitioner was having very bad service record, thus, under compelled circumstances, he was prematurely retired.
{{/usCountry}}The court found that show-cause notice was not served upon him, but the record suggests that his entire service record was considered. It was found that out of his 27 years and 11 months service, his 10 years’ service was forfeited. He was awarded four major punishments and there are 17 bad entries. He remained absent from duty for 793 days. Now, he is facing criminal proceedings in an attempt-to-murder case registered in January 2020.