Pending Criminal Case and Appointment of Government Job

621 votes

You are facing a situation where an FIR under Section 306 IPC was lodged against you and your mother in 2021 by your elder sister after your father’s suicide. You remained in custody for about two months but since then, over the last four years, the case has not progressed meaningfully because your sister has not come forward as a prosecution witness. The case is weak and the evidence is clearly in your favour, but it technically remains pending before the district court. Now that you have successfully secured a government job as Junior Engineer (Civil), you are worried about the impact of this pending case during police verification. The law on this point is clear. Until and unless you are convicted, you are presumed innocent. A mere pendency of a case does not automatically disqualify you from public employment. The Supreme Court in Avtar Singh v. Union of India (2016) held that disclosure of a pending case is essential, but that in itself is not fatal. The appointing authority has discretion to assess the nature of the case, the seriousness of allegations, and the likelihood of conviction. If the case appears to be frivolous, malicious, or not supported by evidence, the authority should ordinarily not reject a candidate merely on that ground. What is considered more serious is suppression of information. If you truthfully declare the case in your attestation form and the same is reflected in police verification, you cannot be accused of suppression. In practice, the department may either allow you to join subject to the outcome of the trial, or keep your appointment provisional until the case is concluded. If they try to reject your candidature outright, you can approach the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution and challenge such action. Courts have consistently protected candidates where criminal cases were pending but no conviction was recorded. The best course of action for you is to take steps to close the criminal case. Since the complainant is not appearing and there is no evidence, you can file an application for discharge before the trial court under Section 239 CrPC or approach the High Court under Section 482 CrPC for quashing of the proceedings on the ground that continuation of trial would amount to abuse of process. Once you are discharged or acquitted, the entire issue of pendency will vanish and you will have no obstacle in service. Therefore, your immediate legal option is to apply for discharge or quashing of the criminal case while simultaneously disclosing the truth to the department. With full disclosure and without suppression, your candidature should not be rejected merely because of the pendency

Advocate Arka Maiti LawRato