The court emphasized the necessity of complete disclosure of criminal history in the context of police appointments to ensure suitability and integrity within the police force.

JUDGMENT

Mohammed Nias.C.P.. J.

The above original petition is filed by the applicant before the Tribunal who was included in the rank list of Civil Police Officer (Police Constable) (APB) – KAP II Battalion (Thrissur) as rank No.742 and who was advised for the post and had reported for the medical examination successfully. On 5.10.2020, the petitioner while filling the Verification Roll, in which he was required to give the full particulars of the cases in which he was involved and imposed a payment of fine, he had only given the number of the cases and omitted to give other details. Further details were given only on 16.10.2020. A show cause notice (Annexure A3) was issued by the first respondent on 5.10.2021, which led to an order prohibiting the petitioner's appointment for the post mentioned above on the ground of non- furnishing of the details sought. Annexure A4 explanation given by the applicant was not accepted by the first respondent who as per Annexure A12 order found the appellant not suitable for the post, debarring him from employment in the police department invoking Rule 10(b)(iii) of Part II KS & SSR. The petitioner had approached the Tribunal by filing OA(EKM) No.1673 of 2021, which was dismissed. The petitioner also unsuccessfully filed a review application RA (EKM) 19 of 2021 which also was dismissed. Aggrieved by the dismissal of the above, this original petition is filed.

2. It was the contention of the petitioner before the Tribunal that Annexures A5 to A11 would show that the applicant was involved only in minor offences and all of them were sentenced with payment of fine and were remitted by the petitioner and therefore the same cannot be taken as a ground for denial of employment. It is his further argument that those crimes not involve proclivity for violence, which alone can be the ground for disqualifying going by Section 86 (i)(b) of the Kerala Police Act , 2011. He also cited the decision inAvtar Singh v. Union of India [ 2016(4) KHC 359 ] to substantiate his contentions.

3. The Tribunal on consideration of Annexure A12 and the pleadings, noted that out of the seven crimes registered against him, four involved drunken driving and were offences under Section 279 IPC r/w 185 of the Motor Vehicles Act. Two crimes were registered for drinking in public place and behaving in an unruly manner and one criminal case was for rash and negligent driving in a manner which would cause hurt to others. The Tribunal found that the criminal cases were registered during 2010 to 2017 and that the applicant was not involved in any of the crimes after 2017 when he applied for the post pursuant to the notification. The Tribunal also found that though he had mentioned about the case number of criminal cases, he had failed to provide details as to the offences and conviction in the matter and therefore, Annexure A12 cannot be faulted and thus dismissed the original application.

4. The petitioner had preferred a review application contending that the Tribunal has wrongly noted that the petitioner was involved in criminal cases when the selection process was under way and that the Tribunal did not take note of Section 86 (i) of the Police Act, 2011 and also the fact that the offences alleged were trivial in nature. The Tribunal found the first contention in the review to be factually wrong and also found that there was an inclination for the petitioner to repeatedly involve in the offence of the same nature and the said act cannot be considered to be trivial and accordingly, rejected the review petition.

5. In this original petition before us, the learned counsel for the petitioner vehemently argued that the petitioner had disclosed the pendency of cases against him and further details could not be given as he was not in possession of the same. It was not a case of suppression in which event he would not have furnished the details of the case.

6. We had directed the learned Government Pleader to produce the entire files relat