New Delhi, Aug 25 (IANS) The Delhi High Court Wednesday held that a person convicted for minor offences should not be disqualified from entry or retention in government service.
‘It is high time the executive brings in a policy where summary or ordinary conviction should not be treated as a conviction for entry or retention in government service,’ a bench comprising Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Mool Chand Garg said.
The court upheld a Sep 8 order of the Central Administrative Tribunal which had directed the government to take steps to issue the appointment letter to Robin Singh who was refused employment as a sub-inspector in Delhi Police.
Singh was denied employment even though he was acquitted in a case of causing hurt and intimidation.
‘The need of the hour is to understand that criminals are not born and are not irredeemable brutes. Crime may be a disease but not the criminals who are a kind of psychic patients and to understand that anti-social maladies are mostly the result of social imbalances,’ the court said.
The court asked the government to adopt a sympathetic approach towards people accused of minor offences.
‘While denying employment with respect to the offence committed by a person, it may be a serious violation of the constitutional right of a citizen to be fairly treated in the matter of public employment if trivial offences committed by the citizen would justify the state shutting its eyes and denying employment,’ the court said.
Asking the Delhi government to come up with proper guidelines for employment, the court said that in the absence of proper policies from the executive, it has no choice but to step in to protect the interest of citizens.
‘Till then, it would be the duty of the court to interpret the law by harmonizing human sufferings and human wants, delinquencies and criminal tendencies,’ the court said.
‘Life is too precious to be staked over petty incidents and the cruel result of conviction for petty offences being the end of the career, the future and the present, of young and inexperienced persons, cannot blast their life and their dreams,’ it said.
