The Delhi High Court recently upheld a decision to compulsorily retire an officer from the Border Security Force (BSF) after certain objectionable images of him with a woman officer who was married to another went viral on social media.

The Division Bench of Justice Hari Shankar and Justice Om Prakash Shukla stated that such extramarital relations reflected unacceptable conduct from a member of the security forces.

The Court went on to state that an officer who cannot control his impulses cannot be entrusted with the security of the nation. 

“Entering into an extramarital liaison is unacceptable from an officer of the Forces. An officer who cannot keep his impulses in check off the field cannot be entrusted the security of the nation. More empirically, it erodes public confidence in the moral standards of such an officer, which also, in its wake, affects his credibility as one to whom the security of the nation and its people can safely be entrusted,” the Court said. 

The Court explained that the public expects a certain measure of discipline from members of the security forces. Therefore, security personnel are expected to display the highest ethical and moral standards in every sphere of life.

“We may observe, at the outset, that a member of a paramilitary, or military, force, is expected to display the highest standards of propriety, conduct, and rectitude. The nation looks up to him. A disciplined soldier on the field cannot afford to be a profligate off it. Discipline is the very raison d’ etre of a member of the militia, and must inform his conduct in every sphere of life. High ethical and moral standards are required of a member of a military, or paramilitary force. The necessity of rectitude and propriety increases proportionately with the ascendancy of the officer in the military echelons,” the Court stated. 

The Court was also not persuaded to take any lenient stance over arguments that the relationship between the BSF officer who faced the disciplinary action and the woman constable was a consensual one from years earlier.

"The allegations against the petitioner were extremely serious. It is not merely a case of a consensual relationship with another woman officer, while being married, which would have been bad enough. The petitioner also took compromising photographs of the liaison," it remarked.

The Court added that even by his own admission, the officer appeared to be a person of questionable moral standards. 

“An officer of questionable moral or ethical standards has no place in a military, or paramilitary, force,” the Court ruled. 

The judgment was passed on a petition filed by the former BSF officer (petitioner) challenging a 2021 decision to compulsorily retire him from service.

This order was passed after certain intimate photos that featured him and a woman constable in compromising positions surfaced on social media in 2016.

Notably, the final disciplinary action against the petitioner was ordered without setting up a General Security Force Court (GSFC) trial. The BSF's Director General concluded that holding a GSFC trial was inexpedient and that the officer's further retention in the BSF was undesirable.

Rule 20 of the Border Security Force Rules was invoked, which provides that an officer can be terminated from services for misconduct without a GSFC trial, if such a trial is “inexpedient or impracticable” and if his service is “undesirable."

The officer's counsel argued that such a course of doing away with a GSFC trial can only be resorted to in exceptional cases, which were not made out in the present matter.

The Court, however, refused to interfere.

"The very act of entering into such a liaison with another female officer, and of taking photographs of the incident, in such a manner as could enable them to be leaked and circulated in the social media, was by itself sufficient for the executive authorities to arrive at the subjective decision that the holding of a GSFC was inexpedient," it held, before dismissing the former BSF officer's plea.

Advocate Ankur Chhibber appeared for the petitioner. 

Senior Panel Counsel Anshuman, with advocate Vaibhav Sood, appeared for the Union of India.

[Read judgment]