Premature retirement of a government servant should be based on tangible material and the service profile, and involvement in criminal cases alone may not be sufficient grounds for compulsory retirement.

1. For making the administration efficient, periodical review of all its officers is taken by the State Governments to weed out the in-efficient and corrupt officers from the services. This is an exercise conducted in public interest. A government servant, during his service career, is required to conduct himself honestly, do his job in accordance with rules and maintain a level of honesty and integrity to sustain his reputation. There are two modes by which the conduct of a government servant is appreciated; one is recording of Annual APR’s by superior officers, which is the character roll of his service record and the other mode is his general reputation in the public at large under whose gaze he remains.

2. For purposes of assessing character roll of a government servant, as reflected in his APRs, the same is documented. Regarding his reputation in the eyes of general public, it is not documented but can be gathered from the circumstances. It is in this area where the role of the government servant is judged by various factors, like; (a) if there are specific complaints against his conduct, which is subject matter of enquiry in a criminal charge or by a departmental enquiry; (b) if the allegations are not specific but general in nature, which are not subject matter of any enquiry or investigation before the competent authority;

3. Regarding specific allegations, which are subject matter of investigation or enquiry, the out come of such enquiry or investigation will determine the fate of such a complaint. The officer will have a right to face such an enquiry and rebut the charges before the Criminal court or the Enquiry Officer. The complaints, which are general in nature but are not subject matter of any enquiry or trial and are relatable to the general reputation of the officer, regarding his honesty, efficiency and integrity, is an area where the scope of invoking the provisions for compulsorily retiring him are required to be examined. This, in essence, is an area where the State Government can form its subjective opinion, based on material for ordering the compulsory retirement of an officer.

4. In exercise of its powers under Article 226 (2) of the Civil Service Regulations, the State Government can, in public interest, retire a government servant after completion of qualifying service of 22 years or his crossing the upper age limit of 48 years.

5. A Committee was set up by the State Government to consider the cases of the officers and officials for pre-mature retirement, consisting of the Chief Secretary, Financial Commissioner Home, Commissioner-Secretary General Administration Department, Commissioner-Secretary Law Department, Additional Director General, CID and Commissioner of Vigilance. A decision is stated to have been taken by this Committee, which culminated in the pre-mature retirement of various government officers, which included the present respondent also. The Committee recommended the pre-mature retirement of the respondent, by recommending as under:-

"Shri Janak Singh is an officer of Kashmir Accounts (Accounts) Service of 1984 batch and has worked as Chief Accounts Officer in a number of Government departments in civil Secretariat and outside. The officer came to the adverse notice of State Vigilance Organization during the investigation of case FIR No. 69/99 P/S VOJ pertaining to purchase of jute matting for Education Department in the year 1997-98. The officer was then posted as FA/CAO of Education Department and was member of the State Level Purchase Committee headed by Shri Ajit Kumar, IAS.

The investigations conducted have revealed that the accused including Shri Janak Singh have caused huge loss to the State exchequer on account of purchase of jute matting on exorbitant rates. To facilitate the purchase of jute matting on exorbitant rates, out of the 9 tenders received, 6 tenders were rejected on a non-existing stipulation that purchase of only Birla Make Jute matting will be made. Ou