Chandigarh: In an indictment of senior Haryana Police officials, the Punjab and Haryana high court has imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on the state for “scant regard” to court orders and denying a constable’s job to a candidate who was already declared innocent in a criminal case. The court criticised officials for their “reprehensible attitude”, procedural lapses, and blatant disregard for judicial directives. “This is a classic case of misuse of power and abuse of process of law. The officers dealing with the matter, despite repeated orders of this court, have shown a reprehensible attitude just to stick to their opinion. It shows they have scant regard for the orders of constitutional courts,” the court observed in its detailed order.The selected candidate had to approach the court for the third time because of the denial of appointment by police authorities due to “mechanically prepared” verification reports. In its order released on Monday, the court also ordered that an appointment letter be issued to the candidate within two weeks.Justice Jagmohan Bansal passed these orders while allowing a petition filed by Surender, who sought to set aside an order dated April 16, whereby police authorities rejected his claim for the post of constable.The petitioner cleared the selection process for constable recruitment advertised in Dec 2020, but was denied appointment due to a pending FIR registered in Aug 2021 in Punjab for cheating and related charges. The FIR was registered after the filing of his application. Though the investigating agency in Punjab later filed a supplementary challan declaring him innocent, and the trial court discharged him in Feb 2024, the Haryana police department refused to issue his appointment letter. This was despite multiple court orders directing state police to reconsider his case in view of Supreme Court directions in such cases.After examining the entire record of the case and hearing the parties, the court observed that it was evident the commandant, 2nd Battalion, Haryana Armed Police (HAP), was aware that the director bureau of investigation (BOI), Punjab, asked the SSP to discharge the petitioner in the criminal matter. He asked the SSP concerned of Punjab police to clarify whether charges were framed or not.“It is undisputed that the petitioner was already reported in column No.2 of the supplementary challan dated Dec 27, 2022, thus there was no question of framing charge… The Supreme Court has held that the authority should consider the nature of the offence, timing and nature of the criminal case, overall consideration of the judgment of acquittal, nature of query in the verification form, socio-economic strata of the individual, and other antecedents of the candidate. The respondent (Haryana Police) has not examined even a single aspect as mandated by the Supreme Court,” the HC held while directing state police to issue an appointment letter to the petitioner.
