SC Suspends Allahabad HC’s Decision On Compulsory Retirement Of A District Judge

Coming to the rescue of Additional District Judge Vimal Prakash Kandpal who compulsorily retired last year, the Supreme Court on Tuesday suspended the decision of the Allahabad High Court against him.

“The matter is adjourned to enable the learned counsel for the respondent High Court to produce the relevant Rules dealing with the procedure for maintaining the Annual Confidential Reports of the Officers. Prima facie, we are satisfied that the impugned order is required to be kept in abeyance insofar as petitioner is concerned,”

“We accordingly keep the impugned order, insofar as petitioner is concerned, in abeyance, until further orders”, a bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said while hearing VP Kandpal’s petition challenging the HC decision.

Questioning the rules followed by the district judge while writing the Annual Confidential Report (ACR) of Kandpal, the bench asked the counsel, who appeared for the Allahabad High Court, to place on record the rules followed to proceed against the judge.

The full court of the Allahabad High Court on April 14 last year had taken a decision for compulsory retirement of Kandpal on the basis of screening committee recommendations against him.

The counsel for high court argued that the screening committee found his ACR was below the standard. He was also found absent when a high court judge had inspected his court.

It was further alleged that he was not punctual and used derogatory language against others.

The recommendations of the committee were accepted by the full court.

Arguing for the petitioner judge, senior advocate R Basant submitted that the allegations were not legally sustainable. His integrity was never questioned.

Further, he argued that Kandpal joined the service in 2000, but his ACR was written till 2008-2009, and no ACR was sent to high court for the subsequent years.