A committee of the High Court, on the basis of the adverse remarks, recommended his termination in November 2008.
Nearly a decade after his services were terminated by Punjab government on recommendations of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, a division bench of the High Court Wednesday ordered reinstatement of the judicial officer from the state.
“Petitioner (Amrish Kumar Jain) is ordered to be reinstated in service within one month from today (Wednesday) with all consequential benefits i.e. seniority, continuity of service, increments, right to promotions etc., but without any arrears of salary,” the division bench of Justices A B Chaudhari and Kuldip Singh said. The services of Amrish Kumar Jain, who was then a civil judge (junior division), had been terminated in 2009. He had qualified the Punjab Civil Services (Judicial Branch) Examination in 1993, but was only appointed following orders of a division bench of the High Court in 2005 on probation for a period of two years, which he completed in November 2007. His judicial work was withdrawn after completion of three years’ probation in November 2008.
According to Jain’s plea before the High Court, the District and Sessions Judge at Jalandhar in May 2007 was biased towards him, due to which adverse remarks were noted in his Annual Confidential Report (ACR) for the year 2007-08.
A committee of the High Court, on the basis of the adverse remarks, recommended his termination in November 2008. The full court of the High Court accepted the recommendations and recommended them to the government accordingly.
The division bench, in the judgement on Wednesday, noted that Jain was a newcomer and under probation and said that his services should not have been terminated on the basis of the defects pointed by the district and sessions judge and due to one unscrupulous complaint made against him by an accused.
“The then learned District and Sessions Judge was supposed to guide him. These kind of defects can be found in the working of any Court….It appears that then learned District and Sessions Judge was not happy with the petitioner. That is why, he chose to make such routine remarks and submitted the detailed report in several annexures to the Administrative Judge to make him biased,” the judgement read.