The central legal point established in the judgment is the significance of affording an opportunity of hearing to an employee before taking adverse administrative action, in line with the principles of natural justice.

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 order no. 333 of 2014 dated 22.02.2014 passed by the Sr. Superintendent of Police (SSP), Jammu. The engagement of the petitioner as SPO was made on the basis of the approval granted by the Deputy Inspector General of Police, J-K-S Range.

4. From the date of his engagement as SPO till the date of his unceremonious discharge by virtue of the impugned order passed in July, 2019 the petitioner's working in service was blameless if not creditworthy. The petitioner, as SPO, was detailed with the District Police Line (“DPL” in short) from where he used to be assigned to different duties in connection with the police duty/work. An FIR no. 0132 dated 07.07.2019 came to be registered by the Police Station Satwari on a complaint of Sr. Superintendent of Police (SSP) Traffic City, Jammu wherein one Sgct. Chatter Singh and the petitioner herein came to be named as accused persons for alleged act of omission and commission amounting to an offence under section 4 of the Jammu & Kashmir Prevention of Corruption Act, Svt.2006.

5. The lodging of FIR by the Sr. Superintendent of Police (SSP) Traffic City, Jammu was purportedly precipitated by a viral video of 05.07.2019 on social media, said to be of an incident which took place at Fourth Tawi Bridge, Jammu when a vehicle was stopped by Sgct. Chatter Singh, no. 58/JT, EXJ-006622 along with the petitioner being SPO while deployed for traffic regulation duties at the said bridge. As per the alleged video footage the vehicle stopped for checking was allegedly boarded by the petitioner to speak to the driver of the said vehicle for allegedly demanding/accepting bribe and allowing the vehicle to resume its movement after a while thereby casting an impression that by accepting the bribe the two police persons i.e. Sgct. Chatter Singh and the petitioner had let the vehicle off which footage allegedly brought the reputation of the traffic police in disrepute, besides constituting an alleged act of corruption on the part of the two policemen under the provisions of the Jammu & Kashmir Prevention of Corruption Act, Svt. 2006.

6. This FIR later on resulted in presentation of a final police report no. 12/2021 dated 15.06.2021 under section 173 of the Jammu & Kashmir Criminal Procedure Code, Svt. 1989 in terms whereof the case came to be closed as "not proved" against the said two accused persons.

7. However, with the same purported event, the petitioner came to be disengaged vide an order no. 790 of 2019 dated 06.07.2019 of the Sr. Superintendent of Police (SSP), Jammu, where as Sgct. Chatter Singh seemed to have suffered no such disengagement from his service. It is pertinent to mention here that upon registration of FIR, the petitioner as well as Sgct. Chatter Singh had come to be placed under suspension by the Sr. Superintendent of