Rajasthan High Court Expunges Adverse Entries From RTO's ACR, Says His Performance Can't Be Unsatisfactory & Outstanding In Same Year

The Rajasthan High Court recently quashed and expunged the adverse entries made in the Annual Confidential Report (ACR) for the year 2005-2006 of a Regional Transport Officer

The single judge bench of Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand said

“It is worthy to note here that ACR of the petitioner for the questioned year were filled by the Reviewing Officer and not by the Reporting Officer who was not competent to fill the same however, at later stage when his comments were sought by the Department on the representation submitted by the petitioner, justifying his action, he recommended for taking sympathetic view of deleting the adverse entries in the ACR of the petitioner. It is clear that the ACR of the petitioner were filled by a person who was not competent to do so, hence, such adverse entries in such ACR are not valid as per the APAR instructions.”

The writ petitioner was holding the post of Additional Regional Transport Officer from January 24, 2003 and he was promoted to the post of Regional Transport Officer against the vacancies of 2005-2006 vide order dated July 15, 2005. He joined the post on July 16, 2005. The counsel appearing for the petitioner submitted that the promotion order of the petitioner was recalled and he was given promotion on the post on December 10, 2012 against the vacancies of 2009-2010.

It was submitted that the reason for delaying the promotion of the petitioner was the adverse entries recorded into the ACR of the petitioner pertaining to the year 2005-2006. The counsel argued that without giving any notice or advisory, the ACR of the petitioner were downgraded to unsatisfactory while the work performance of the petitioner was excellent and several appreciations in this regard were given by the higher authorities in his favour.

Thus, it was prayed that the adverse entries made against the petitioner for the year 2005-2006 be quashed and set aside and the respondents be directed to provide all consequential benefits to the petitioner.

On the other hand, the counsel appearing for the State contended that an advisory was issued to the petitioner asking him to take interest in the allotted work and follow the court cases but his performance in the work was nil and looking at such performance of the petitioner, adverse entry (unsatisfactory) was recorded in his ACR.

The court observed that the officer writing the confidential report should show objectivity, impartiality and fair assessment without any prejudices whatsoever with the highest sense of responsibility to inculcate devotion to duty, honesty and integrity to improve excellence of an individual officer.

“It is duty of the Reporting Officer and the Reviewing Officer to take care not only that in their assessment of overall performance of the subordinate officer but also they are not influenced by any personal interest, bias or malice,” the court said.

It noted that in the ACR of April, 2005 till December 16, 2005, the performance of the petitioner was mentioned as ‘unsatisfactory’, his work was mentioned as ‘nil’ and he was advised to take interest in the allotted work and follow up to the court cases.

"It is relevant to note here that for the same year the ACR was filed for the period commencing from 16.07.2005 to March, 2006 and the Reporting Officer found the performance of the petitioner ‘outstanding’ and this fact was recorded in his ACR that the petitioner is an outstanding officer, very hard working and devoted to his job. He has ability to take responsibility and get work done from subordinates. During his tenure of Dy.T.C. (writ) he took pain in getting litigation work disposed of quickly. He may be awarded with any type of responsibility, the Reviewing Officer agreed with the report of Reporting Officer and also treating the work performance of the petitioner as ‘outstanding’ and the accepting officer accepted the aforesaid ACR of the petitioner," said the court.

The bench further said the adverse entries made in the half year of the ACR in question are not in keeping with the petitioner’s past record and the higher authority did not make any attempt to find out the real cause for his sudden downgrading in the same ACR. "Sudden adverse remarks in the half year of the ACR of the petitioner suffer from biasness. The ACRs of the petitioner for the period commencing w.e.f. 01.04.2005 to 16.12.2005 and 16.07.2005 to March 2016 are self contradictory. The performance of a person like the petitioner cannot by unsatisfactory and outstanding in the same year," the bench said, while expunging the adverse entries.

Case Title: Jagdish Prasad v. The Chief Secretary, Government of Rajasthan & Ors

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