HC overturns compulsory retirement of judge

Srinagar, Sep 5: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh has set aside a government’s order whereby a senior district judge had been compulsorily retired nearly two months before his actual superannuation in 2014.

In his plea before the High court, the senior member of judicial services, Muzaffar Iqbal Qureshi, contended that he was compulsorily retired from the service,  which he said, was contrary to rules. The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir was required to assess the judicial officers for their continued utility in service beyond the age of 50, 55, 58 years, he said.

Qureshi’s plea underscored that the exercise to determine his utility as judicial officer to continue in the service was required to be undertaken by the High Court before he attained the age of 58 years as per the requisite standard prescribed for assessing the utility of the member of the judicial service for continuing in the service beyond 58 years.

In his case, Qureshi said that the exercise was undertaken when only eight months were left for him to attain age of superannuation. In fact, he said, he had been compulsorily retired just before less than two months of his superannuation. “After examining the record, we find that there are no allegations of corruption or otherwise against the petitioner (Qureshi) and his integrity was never doubtful,” a division bench of Justice Rajnesh Oswal and Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal said.

The bench allowed Qureshi’s plea, saying a “person of doubtful integrity can be shown the door at any time but after following the due process of law”.

The bench noted that so far as case of Qureshi was concerned it was of the considered view that the mandate of Rules governing the field while directing his premature retirement and the action of the government in retiring him just two months before his attaining the age of superannuation on the ground of loss of continued utility in service could not sustain the test of law and the same was liable to be set aside.  “As a necessary corollary, the petitioner shall be deemed to have been retired on attaining the age of 60 years,” the court said.