Object is to weed out dishonest, corrupt and deadwood: Orissa High Court upholds compulsory retirement of judicial officer

The Orissa High Court recently upheld a decision on the compulsory retirement of a judicial officer on the grounds of inefficiency and not meeting required standards [Ashok Kumar Agarwala v. Registrar General of Orissa High Court, Cuttack]..On an overall assessment of the judicial officer’s personal record, a Bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice BP Routray did not find the picture that emerged favourable.“During his service career spanning fourteen years and eight months, he was not able to get a ‘good’ grading for at least three consecutive years. He was earlier also let off with a warning to be careful in future,” the Bench recorded..The petitioner in the case, a judicial officer, was given compulsory retirement on his attaining 50 years of age in terms of Rule 44 of the Orissa Judicial Services Rules. While serving at an earlier post, he faced allegations of passing discriminatory orders. The High Court, however, had let him off with a warning back then.Later, while serving at Daringibadi in 2006, similar allegations surfaced against him. He was alleged to have dealt with bail petitions indiscriminately in different cases while showing favour to a particular advocate; rejected the prayer for bail of an applicant arbitrarily and again granted him bail after one day; passed orders for release of property in a particular case arbitrarily; and advanced the date in a criminal case, framed charges, examined witnesses and posted a case for judgment in one single day, without giving any notice to the prosecutor.Based on these charges, and his track record, the Full Court of the Orissa High Court recommended his compulsory retirement, which was accepted by the State government..He then challenged the order of compulsory retirement before the High Court on the ground that no adverse remarks to this effect were made in his confidential report.On the other hand, the Registrar General of the Orissa High Court submitted that the recommendation of the Full Court to retire the officer was made in public interest, and that the scope of judicial review in such matters was limited..On hearing the parties, the Division Bench noted that subordinate courts were under the administrative control of the High Court, which had the power to recommend compulsory retirement.“The object of compulsory retirement is to weed out the dishonest, the corrupt and the deadwood,” explained the Court..Thus, it was the Court’s finding that an overall assessment of the officer’s entire service career reflected that his performance failed to meet the expected standard of competence. It held,“An overall consideration of all those factors, tested on the touchstone of the standard of efficiency of the Petitioner as a Judicial Officer reveals that the decision of authority cannot be said to be as mala fide or arbitrary or based on no evidence.”Therefore, taking into account the petitioner’s service record and the scope of judicial interference in matters involving compulsory retirement, the Court refused to interfere in the order under challenge and dismissed the petition..Advocate Manoj Kumar Mohanty appeared for the petitioner while Advocate PK Muduli appeared for the Registrar General..[Read Order]