Madhya Pradesh High Court upholds dismissal of judge for failing to disclose cheating case

The Madhya Pradesh High Court recently upheld the dismissal of a judicial officer for suppressing his criminal antecedents prior to his appointment as a Civil Judge Class-II in 2007 [Atul Thakur v The State of Madhya Pradesh and Others]..One of the criminal cases against the judicial officer Atul Thakur dated back to 2002 when he was running a petrol pump and was accused of overcharging consumers. He was cleared of the charges in that case in 2008. The Division Bench of Chief Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Vivek Jain, however, noted this case was still pending in 2007 when Thakur applied for the judicial service post, though it later ended in compromise for some of the charges and acquittal for the rest. .The Court added that Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) is undisputedly an offence of moral turpitude and the matter related to cheating customers cannot be considered trivial as was argued by Thakur.“If a person who is selected for the post of Civil Judge suppresses a pending case or a previous prosecution in the matter of cheating, then it cannot be said to be a trivial matter. In any case, cheating is never a trivial matter and it certainly amounts to moral turpitude," the Court said.The Bench rejected Thakur’s argument that he was just a student at the time of appointment and thus ignorant about legal matters. “It is surprising to note that a candidate getting selected to the post of Civil Judge Class - II is projecting himself to be ignorant about legal matters and such ignorance is not pleaded by a School or College student, but by a Civil Judge selectee, that too at the time when he was around 30 years of age,” it said..Similarly, the Court also rebuffed Thakur’s claim that since he was informed by his then-counsel that the case had been compounded after the filing of an application, he had not disclosed the FIR.“It cannot be believed that a Civil Judge selectee did not know that some of the offences are non-compoundable and that the case comes to end not by filing application, but upon passing order by the Court,” it remarked. .After his appointment as judicial officer in 2008, Thakur was placed under suspension in 2010, but the same was revoked in 2012. Meanwhile, he was issued a chargesheet in 2011 for suppressing the information about two FIRs - from 2002 and 2007- in the attestation form filed by him when he applied to join the judicial services.The charge related to the suppression of one of the FIRs was proven. Consequently, Thakur was dismissed in 2015. His representation for reconsideration of the decision was turned down by the High Court on the administrative side in 2017. He then moved the High Court with a writ petition. .His counsel submitted that the departmental enquiry against Thakur suffered from various technical defects and that the case was not a case of willful suppression of criminal antecedents. It was a case of bonafide mistake as there was no suppression of required information in a willful manner, it was argued.It was also argued that Thakur did not deserve harshest punishment of dismissal from service as the criminal cases were of trivial nature..The Court noted that the attestation form signed by Thakur, before his appointment, had queries related to the candidate having ever been prosecuted or if there was any case pending against him. Thakur was bound to disclose the 2002 FIR even if he was under the impression that the case was compromised, the Court said.“In Column 12 (ख) specific mention was made that if in response to any of the queries, the answer is 'Yes', then complete particulars of the crime, FIR number, date of challan, name of Court, status of case, etc. has to be given. The petitioner did not disclose the fact of he having been prosecuted. Even if he was under impression that the case has been compromised on 15.11.2007, then it was evident that he had been prosecuted, because FIR was registered in the year 2002 and he was bound to disclose that fact," the Court's ruling stated..The Court thus concluded that it was a case of willful suppression of material information in the character attestation form. It refused to grant Thakur the benefit of a Supreme Court ruling that in such cases, the employer can look into the nature of criminal cases and socio-economic strata of the candidate.“In the present case, the petitioner belongs to a upper strata of society as he admits to belong to business family and running a petrol pump. The query in the attestation form was clear and he is a legally trained person and got selected to the post of Civil Judge. The offence in question also amounts to moral turpitude as it was an offence of cheating along with provisions of Essential Commodities Act. Therefore, this judgement does not help the petitioner at all,” the Bench said..Senior Advocate Manoj Kumar Sharma and advocate Quazi Fakhruddin represented the petitioner. Deputy Advocate General Abhijeet Awasthi and advocate Anshuman Singh represented the respondents..[Read Judgment]