Adverse Entry Against Govt Servant In Confidential Report Can't Be Acted Upon Without Furnishing It To Him To Enable Effective Representation: Tripura HC

The observation came from Justice T Amarnath Goud:

"It is a trite law that a downgrading and/or adverse entry in the Confidential Report can only be acted upon, to the prejudice of the government servant when such downgraded/adverse entry is furnished to the government servant at the earliest possible opportunity, thereby providing him a scope to submit an effective representation against such entry."

The remarks were made while deciding a writ petition filed by a BSF Inspector aggrieved by the action of Deputy Commandant in not considering him for promotion to the post of Assistant Commandant whereas his juniors were promoted.

The case of the petitioner was that the adverse remarks in his Annual Performance Appraisal Report (APAR) were not intimated to him until a period of about 7 years.

Agreeing with the Petitioner that he was denied an opportunity to present his case, the Court said,

"It is an established principle of service jurisprudence that even a downgrading in the Annual Confidential Report can be treated as an adverse entry and therefore, before recording such downgrading in the Confidential Report, the concerned employee is to be cautioned so that he can remedy his defects/shortcomings and only after administering such caution a downgrading in the confidential report can be recorded and the concerned employee is entitled to be confronted with such downgrading in the Confidential Report, thereby providing him with an opportunity to persuade the Reporting Officer, to alter the downgrading in the Confidential Report."

The Court said that in absence thereof, downgraded/adverse entry cannot be acted upon to the prejudice of the government servant. Applying this settled legal principle to the case in hand, the impugned letters were quashed.

Further, the Court said that in the case of the petitioner there has been "gross defiance" of the settled principles of law and natural justice and hence the impugned letter and orders pursuant whereof, the petitioner was denied the benefit of promotion are in gross violation of his Constitutional rights, guaranteed under Articles-14, 16, 19 and 300A of the Constitution of India.

Court also noted that there are latches on the part of the petitioner and equally there are latches on the part of the respondents too. "This Court feels that when both are standing on the same footing and the respondents being a government having full-fledged visionary, the latches on their part cannot be taken in a lighter sense, hence, the benefit needs to be extended to the petitioner."

Case Title: Suma Chandra Das v. The Union of India. and Ors.

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