SC – Uncommunicated Adverse Remarks Can Be Considered for Compulsory Retirement
Judgment dated 6.11.2026 of the Supreme Court in SLP (Civil) No.24392 of 2023 of Chatur Singh Dhruw Vs. The State of Chhattisgarh and others with connected
Pursuant to the Circular dated 25th April 2017, separate orders dated 09th October 2017 came to be issued whereby the Appellants were compulsorily retired from service.
It follows, therefore, that an order of compulsory retirement must be supported by relevant material such as Annual Confidential Reports, integrity assessments, performance evaluations and other service-record entries bearing upon the employee’s utility and suitability for continued retention. Judicial review in such cases does not entail a re-appreciation or re-weighing of the material by the Court as though it were sitting in appeal over the administrative decision. The Court is concerned only with whether relevant material existed, whether such material was taken into consideration by the competent authority, and whether the conclusion drawn therefrom is one which a reasonable person could have arrived at. So long as these requirements are satisfied, the Court will not substitute its view for that of the authority entrusted with the decision-making process.
This Court is unable to accept the contention that the promotion of the Appellants rendered the subsequent adverse material irrelevant for the purposes of compulsory retirement. The principle that adverse entries lose their significance upon promotion of an employee to a higher post is confined to those entries which pre-date the promotion and are deemed to have been overlooked by the employer while conferring such promotion. That principle cannot be extended to obliterate or neutralise entries recorded after promotion, which relate to the employee’s performance in the promoted post itself.
Consequently, this Court is of the considered view that the subsequent Annual Confidential Reports of both Appellants reflected declined performance and unsatisfactory discharge of duties in the promoted post and cannot be rendered inconsequential merely by reason of their earlier promotions. On the contrary, the material on record indicates that the Appellants failed to maintain the requisite standards expected of incumbents occupying the promoted post.
The evaluation and assessment of the service record by the Committee does not involve any adjudication of misconduct.
