JUDGMENT :

Heard learned counsel for the petitioner.

1. When it comes to a matter of an administrative action taking or decision making in discharging/dismissing a person from position of public employment, be that from a permanent, temporary or contractual status, to be based upon an adverse judgement drawn by the public authority as an employer against a given employee for any delinquency on his part, then most elementary procedural safeguard which an employer has to keep in guiding service attending his action/decision is the observance of the rules of natural justice so that a well meaning action/decision to be taken maintains and retains its foothold in the event of being posed with a legal challenge at the instance of an aggrieved employee.

2. The present case is the grievance of a person who while serving as Special Police Officer (“SPO” in short) came to be discharged from his engagement without affording him any right of hearing against his dismissal that too which proceeded on stigmatic judgement and order of the Sr. Superintendent of Police (SSP), Jammu.

3. The petitioner came to be engaged as SPO, under the Jammu & Kashmir Police Act, Svt., 1983, in the J&K Police vide an o