10 yrs on, judicial officer reinstated

Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, March 29

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More than 10 years after the services of a Civil Judge (Junior Division) were dispensed with, the judicial officer, Amrish Kumar Jain, has been reinstated. The order came following the filing of a contempt petition nearly five months after the Punjab and Haryana High Court not only directed his reinstatement, but also found faults with two of its Judges and its own administrative decision.

As the contempt petition for non-compliance of order dated October 3, last year, came up for hearing before Justice Nirmaljit Kaur, Punjab state counsel placed on record order dated March 8. Among other things, it said the petitioner had been reinstated on his original post with all consequential benefits. Justice Nirmaljit Kaur directed the forwarding of the order to the High Court Registrar-General, with a request for issuing Jain’s posting order immediately.

Allowing Amrish Kumar Jain’s petition with “all consequential benefits”, a Division Bench had asserted that Jalandhar’s then District and Sessions Judge Gurdev Singh, who went on to become a HC Judge, was apparently not happy with the petitioner. He submitted a detailed report “in several annexures” to the Administrative Judge to make him biased.

The Administrative Judge, elevated to the Supreme Court subsequently, relied upon the then District and Sessions Judge’s report to record an adverse annual confidential report “without critically examining the background and facts”.

Jain, in his petition filed in 2009 through senior advocate Puneet Jindal, was seeking the quashing of adverse ACR, dated June 9, 2008, and order, dated November 26, 2008, whereby his services as a member of the Punjab Civil Services (Judicial Branch), were dispensed with.