Chennai: A candidate provisionally selected to the post of a fireman but denied appointment for suppressing registration of a criminal case, got reprieve after nearly 12 years with the Madras HC directing the TN Uniformed Services Recruitment Board to appoint him as fireman within eight weeks.
Justice D. Hariparanthaman gave the directive while disposing of a petition from S. Sathiyaseelan.
Pursuant to a notification issued by the board for the post of fireman for 1999-2000, Sathiyaseelan applied and was successful in the entire test. He was provisionally selected. He was found fit in the medical examination. However, he was not given an appointment order while his batch-mates, who were also provisionally selected, were given appointment orders and deputed for training. When he made enquiries, he was told that he suppressed registration of a criminal case against him in his application.
According to the petitioner, he was not aware of the criminal case being registered against him. There was a communal clash between SC/STs and Vanniyars of the area at Chidambaram and so a group belonging to both communities was questioned by the police. But, he was neither arrested nor detained in a police station, he added.
The judge said additional government pleader has produced a copy of the report of the investigating officer, wherein it was stated that the criminal case was closed as a mistake of fact. The report makes it clear that the petitioner cannot be blamed that he suppressed the fact relating to the registration of a criminal case. There was no evidence adduced by the board to come to the conclusion that the petitioner was aware of the registration of the criminal case, the judge added.
The judge said the petitioner applied in January 2000. But the FIR was registered on May 4, 2000. “That is, when he made the application, there was no registration of the FIR. The investigating officer gave the closure report on May 25, 2000, while selection process got completed in 2012 and the petitioner’s batch-mates were given appointment orders in November 2002. Hence, I am of the considered view that there is no reason to deny appointment to the petitioner on the ground that he suppressed the registration of the criminal case,” the judge added.
