SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

Before:- G.B. Pattanaik and B.N. Agrawal, JJ.

Civil Appeal No. 2732 of 2000. D/d. 2.5.2001.

State of U.P. and others - Appellants

Versus

Raj Kishore Goel - Respondent

A. Uttar Pradesh Fundamental Rules, Rule 56 - Compulsory retirement - Judicial review - Scope - Administrative Law - Administrative order - Interference permissible only if the order is arbitrary - The conclusion arrived at by the Review Committee cannot be held to be an unreasonable or arbitrary - Held, High Court erred in law in interfering with the order of compulsory retirement passed against respondent - Judgment of High Court is set aside - Appeal allowed.

[Para 1]

B. Compulsory retirement - Held, uncommunicated adverse entry be taken into consideration while passing the order of compulsory retirement.

[Para 1]

Cases Referred :-

Baikuntha Nath Das v. Chief District Medical Officer, Baripada, (1992) 2 SCC 299 .

State of U.P. v. Lalsa Ram, (2001) 3 SCC 389 : (2001) 2 Scale 221.

ORDER

G.B. Pattanaik, J. - The State of U.P. is in appeal against the impugned judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court. The order of compulsory retirement of the respondent who was Executive Engineer, in exercise of powers under Rule 56 of the Uttar Pradesh Fundamental Rules, having been set aside by the High Court, the present appeal has been preferred. The High Court came to the conclusion that after expunction of the adverse entry dated 15-11-1991 in Writ Petition No. 24712 of 1992, three warnings and one censure against the respondent could not have formed the basis of the satisfaction of the appropriate authority to pass an order of compulsory retirement and as such the Court quashed the same. From the proceedings of the Review Committee report, which examined the cases of several engineers including the case of the respondent to decide the question as to whether it would be in the public interest to compulsorily retire the employee concerned, it appears apart from the warnings and censure referred to earlier, there were some adverse entries also for the year 1995-96. That apart, the High Court committed a mistake by coming to the conclusion that an uncommunicated entry could not have been taken into consideration by the appropriate authority, the same being contrary to a three-Judge Bench decision in Baikuntha Nath Das v. Chief District Medical Officer, Baripada, (1992) 2 SCC 299 . The very Rule under which the respondent has been compulsorily retired came up for consideration recently in the case of State of U.P. v. Lalsa Ram, (2001) 3 SCC 389 : (2001) 2 Scale 221. The entire case-law and parameters for exercise of power by the High Court under Article 226 against an order of compulsory retirement have been considered therein and applying the test laid therein to the facts and circumstances of the present case and on examining the impugned judgment, we are of the considered opinion that the High Court erred in law in interfering with the order of the compulsory retirement passed against the respondent. In our view, the conclusion arrived at by the appropriate authority on the materials concerned cannot be held to be a conclusion of an unreasonable man or arbitrary conclusion which could confer jurisdiction on a court to interfere with the same.

2. In the aforesaid premises, we set aside the impugned judgment of the Allahabad High Court and allow this appeal. The order of compulsory retirement stands affirmed.

Allowing the appeal, the Supreme Court.