The court emphasized the importance of following procedure and held that adverse remarks should not be based on whims, fancies, and caprice of any officer.

1. - This special appeal under Section 18 of the Rajasthan High Court Ordinance, 1949 is directed against the judgment and order dated 15.2.2001 passed by the learned Single Judge. The order dated 15.2.2001 is reproduced, as under:

"It is admitted by the counsel for the petitioner that no adverse order has been resulted on account of the adverse entries made in the A.C.R. of 1991- 92 of the petitioner and communicated to the petitioner vide letter dated 25.11.1993 (Annexure-16), that being the case I do not find any good or sufficient reason to admit the writ petition which is directed against the adverse entries. However, it is made clear that if the adverse entries result in any adverse order passed against the petitioner, he shall be at liberty to challenge the adverse order as well as the adverse entries made and communicated to him vide letter dated 25.11.1993 (Annex. 16). The writ petition is accordingly disposed of."

It will be appear from the pleadings of the parties and the contents of the order itself that the petitioner was rejected on the ground that the adverse remarks recorded in the ACR of the appellant for the year 1991-92 which were communicated to him on 25.11.1993, did not result into any adverse order against him. The learned Single Judge therefore, declined to entertain the petition by saying that if the adverse entries result in any adverse order against him, he shall be at liberty to challenge the adverse orders as well as the adverse entries made and communicated to him vide letter dated 25.11.1993. This reasoning as has been given by the learned Single Judge is on the face of it untenable and it is not possible for us to agree with the same as in our considered opinion, it could hardly be a ground for the purposes of not entertaining the petition and dismissing it. In our opinion, the petitioner has a right to challenge the adverse entries even before the same are actually made use of against him for passing any order to his prejudice of which he may come to know only after the adverse order is passed when damage is already done. It is not necessary for him to wait for passing of any order against him on the basis of such adverse entries.

When the matter came up before us on 2.9.2002, after having heard the matter, we had expressed at initial stage that let the matter be remanded back to the learned Single Judge. However, Mr. A.K. Sharma, learned counsel for the appellant submitted that the adverse remarks as recorded against him were pertaining to the year 1991-92 and by this time already 10 years' period has passed and in case the matter is now remanded back to the learned Single Judge, it will further prolong the agony of the petitioner to suffer the prolonged litigation for no fault on his part and, therefore, the matter may be heard and decided on merits.”

2. We found that the submissions of Mr. A.K. Sharma was reasonable and, therefore, the learned Additional Govt. Advocate was directed to come prepared to argue the case on merits along-with the relevant record. On 10.9.2002, when the matter came up before the Court, the learned counsel wanted time to take instructions from the concerned officer and submitted that the concerned officer shall remain present before the Court along-with the relevant record on the next date. The relevant record has been now placed before us.

3. We have gone through the record and find that the adverse remarks recorded against the appellant in the year 1992 were, as under:

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4. The factual matrix of the matter is that the appellant herein was selected by the Rajasthan Public Service Commission for appointment on the post as above by the order dated 30.6.1984 wherein, his name appears at Sr. No. 81. It is also the case of the appellant that he had passed the Pre-Commission Certificate of the NCC on the basis of which he had underg