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Updated 22:51 IST, January 17th 2025

SC Upholds Judicial Officer's Sacking For Travelling Abroad Without Permission

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the termination of a judicial officer, who travelled to Doha and the United Kingdom in 2019 without the requisite permissions

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Supreme Court of India | Image: PTI

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the termination of a judicial officer, who travelled to Doha and the United Kingdom in 2019 without the requisite permissions.

A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and S V N Bhatti questioned the officer's conduct and said he should not be in the judicial system as he had tampered with documents.

Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing in the court on behalf of petitioner Abhinav Kiran Sekhon, tried to convince the court about his client's behaviour but the bench refused to go into the case files, saying entertaining the petition will send a wrong signal.

The bench said the petitioner has even made attempts to keep things away from the court and not brought complete facts before it.

On February 29 last year, the Punjab and Haryana High Court upheld the decision to sack the judicial officer.

It had observed that an officer, who repeatedly committed acts of insubordination or suppression during the period of probation, would continue with such acts and inappropriate behaviour unabated after confirmation, setting a bad example for other judicial officers.

The high court had refused to interfere with its decision taken on the administrative side.

The Punjab government had passed the officer's termination order after a recommendation from the full court of the high court was communicated on December 15, 2020.

Sekhon joined the judicial service in April 2016 and completed training in April 2017. He initially served as a civil judge (junior division) at Ferozepur and thereafter, took up some more assignments, when his termination orders were passed in April 2021.

During investigation, initiated after a random checking exercise by the administrative judge of Patiala district courts, it had come to light that Sekhon had undertaken two trips to Doha and the UK without prior permissions and subsequently, when asked to explain, had tried to misrepresent facts. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Republic and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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Published 22:51 IST, January 17th 2025