The Court emphasized the need for authorities to exercise their powers in accordance with the statute and rules in force, and held that the Director of Fire and Rescue Services was not empowered to entertain a mercy petition.

ORDER :

The order passed in a Mercy Petition in proceedings dated 29.08.2018, is under challenge in the present writ petition.

2. The writ petitioner joined in the Fire and Rescue Services in the year 1974. He was promoted as Driver in the year 1981. A criminal case was registered against the writ petitioner in Crime No. 79 of 2007 and the petitioner was arrayed as Accused No. 3 in the said case.

3. The allegation in the criminal case was that one Mr. Umanath was killed in a temple festival by a mob consisting several persons, in which the petitioner is also alleged to be a member. The Trial Court convicted the petitioner to undergo life imprisonment. The criminal appeal filed by the writ petitioner before the High Court was dismissed. Meanwhile, the competent authorities issued a show cause notice under Rule 17(c) of the Tamil Nadu Civil Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules and thereafter, imposed the punishment of dismissal from service with effect from 26.08.2009. The petitioner preferred an appeal before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India and the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India acquitted the writ petitioner from the criminal charges. Thereafter, the petitioner approached the competent authorities, who in turn, considered the case of the writ petitioner based on the Hon’ble Supreme Court judgment and accordingly, the punishment of dismissal from service was modified to that of compulsory retirement and consequently, all the terminal and full pensionary benefits are settled in favour of the writ petitioner. Now, the writ petitioner is receiving pension. While so, he filed a Mercy Petition before the Director of Fire & Rescue Services on 17.05.2018 to treat the intervening period of service as duty with full salary. However, the same was rejected by the Director in the Mercy petition. The said order is under challenge in the present writ petition.

4. The petitioner was involved in a criminal case and convicted both by the Trial Court and High Court. He was acquitted by the Hon’ble Supreme Court and consequently, the authorities themselves have considered the case of the writ petitioner, took a lenient view and modified the punishment of dismissal from service to that of compulsory retirement. All the terminal and pensionary benefits due to the writ petitioner were settled in full and the petitioner is receiving pension as of now. While so, the petitioner submitted a further application, after the lapse of many years and made a request to treat the period of non-service as duty, with full salary. The very claim itself is untenable, in view of the fact that the petitioner accepted the modified punishment of compulsory retirement and received all the pensionary benefits. If at all he was not satisfied with the modified punishment of compulsory retirement imposed on him, he should have challenged the said order of compulsory retirement, which he had failed to so do. After accepting the modified punishment of compulsory retirement and receiving the terminal and retirement benefits in full, and after a lapse of many years, he had filed a mercy petition, and such mercy petition is not maintainable, as there is no rule to entertain mercy petition by the Director of Fire and Rescue Services.

5. The Director of Fire and Rescue services is incompetent to entertain a mercy petition and grant relief or reject the same. Such mercy petitions are not entertainable and the power of the authority to entertain mercy petition was elaborately considered by this Court with reference to the Rules in W.P.No. 2554 of 2017 and a judgment was delivered on 01.11.2022, which reads as under:

“30. It is brought to the notice of this Court that the Office of the Director General of Police is entertaining mercy petitions/review petitions indiscriminately from many police personnel and the employees. Entertaining mercy petition is illegal and directly in violation of the Tamil Nadu Police Subordinate Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1955 in force. Any of th