After 7-Year Wait, Allahabad HC Orders Appointment Of Man As Judge Who Was Denied Job For 'Spying' For Pakistan Despite Acquittal

The Allahabad High Court recently has ordered the appointment of a man as a judge, nearly seven years after he was initially denied the position due to allegations of espionage. The Court added that the petitioner was “honourably acquitted” at two criminal trials he faced, and no element of truth was found in the prosecution story in either case, and those orders have attained finality. He also contended that though the criminal trials failed, the State Government had enough material to conclude that the petitioner's character could not be certified and, thus, that he was wholly undeserving of the appointment. Unless objective material was shown to exist with the authorities for that suspicion to continue to exist, no adverse civil consequence may ever arise against a citizen, based on such a lingering suspicion, that too in the face of result of an order of “honourable acquittal” at the criminal trial,” the Court remarked. Importantly, the Court also added that unless a citizen is reasonably suspected to be involved in an illegal or other activity that may invite adverse civil consequences, the fact that an intelligence agency or police authority may opine -purely subjectively and thus suspect that such a citizen had indulged in any illegal nature of activity or to have performed such act, without any supportive objective material, may remain a wholly inactionable belief, therefore extraneous to the issue of character certification of the concerned citizen.