GHULAM MURTAZA vs DISTRICT POLICE OFFICER, GUJRAT — 2026 PLC(CS) 805 SUPREME-COURT

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GHULAM MURTAZA VS DISTRICT POLICE OFFICER, GUJRAT. Rr. 3 & 4---Civil service---Dismissal from service---Departmental and criminal proceedings---Distinction---Exception to the general rule---Case where departmental action was founded solely on the registration or pendency of a criminal case / FIR---Acquittal in criminal case---Effect---Departmental charges would fall to the ground---Briefly, the petitioner, who was a Police Constable (BPS-07), was nominated in a FIR registered under sections 302, 311, 147 and 148 P.P.C., whereupon departmental proceedings were initiated against him under the Punjab Police (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 1975, leading to his dismissal from service---Upon preferring appeal, he was provisionally reinstated with directions for a de novo inquiry, during which period he was acquitted in the criminal case, yet upon conclusion of the de novo inquiry he was again dismissed from service, with his departmental appeal, revision, and subsequent appeal before the Punjab Service Tribunal being dismissed, culminating in the filing of the present civil petition before the Supreme Court, raising the legal issue “whether a major penalty of dismissal could lawfully be sustained where departmental action was founded solely on the employee's involvement in a criminal case, notwithstanding his acquittal therein, and where no independent departmental misconduct was examined or established?”---Held: It had been a settled law that where departmental proceedings rested on independent and probe-able evidence of misconduct, an acquittal in the criminal case did not absolve the employee, and both proceedings could lawfully be run concurrently---However, where the departmental action was founded solely on the registration or pendency of an FIR, without any distinct charge of misconduct, the employee's subsequent acquittal extinguished that foundation, rendering any ensuing penalty legally untenable and constitutionally infirm---Impugned judgment was set aside as well as the order of dismissal of the petitioner and as a result he was re-instated into service---Petition was converted into appeal and allowed, in circumstances.

GHULAM MURTAZA vs DISTRICT POLICE OFFICER, GUJRAT — 2026 PLC(CS) 805 SUPREME-COURT

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