INSPECTORGENERAL OF POLICE, PUNJAB, LAHORE and 2 others vs RANA ALTAF

' AJMAL MIAN, J.---This is an appeal with the leave of this Court against the judgment dated 26-5- 1992 passed by the Federal Service Tribunal, Islamabad, hereinafter referred to as the Tribunal, in Appeal No, 164 (1) of 1990, filed by the respondent against the recording of adverse remarks in his A.C.R. For the period from 14-9-1988 to 31-12-1988 to the following effect:-- "Part-IV(c) Integrity ' Honest "No,"

' Part VII (a) "The officer did not enjoy a good reputation for honesty. Used extra departmental pressure for his postings. This is unbecoming of a direct P.S.P. Officer." allowing the smile. Leave to appeal was granted to oversee the correctness or otherwise of the evaluation standared, recognized and applied by the Tribunal for interfering with Annual Confidential Report recorded by officers within the hierarchy.

2. The brief facts are that the respondent belongs to Police Service. He was posted as S.P., Khanewal during the period from 1-1-1988 to 13-9-1988. After that he was transferred to Gujranwala and posted as S.S.P. During the period from 14-9-1988 to 31-12-1988. It appears that the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Gujranwala, who was the Reporting Officer for the above period from 14-9-1988 to 31-2-1988, evaluated his performance and gave him A-1 gradation. However, the Countersigning Officer i,e. I.-G. Recorded the above adverse remarks, which were impugned inter alia in the above service appeal and which was allowed on the various grounds referred to in the impugned judgment. Thereupon., the appellant filed a petition for leave to appeal, which was granted for the above reason.

3. In support of the above appeal, Ch. Ijaz Ahmed, learned Assistant Advocate-General Punjab, has vehemently contended that the Tribunal was not justified to interfere with the evaluation made by the Countersigning Officer.

' Sh. Muhammad Naeem, learned ASC held the brief of Ch. Muhammad Aslam for the respondent.

4. We may observe that the evaluation of the performance of a subordinate by a Reporting Officer or the Countersigning Officer is a matter of subjective assessment and not an objective evaluation.

In this view of the matter, the Tribunal or the Court cannot substitute the view recorded by the Reporting Officer or the Countersigning Officer, nor it will interfere with the above evaluation. This is, however, subject to exceptions, firstly, when the Reporting Officer or the Countersigning Officer himself does not enjoy good reputation and mala fide is alleged against him with full particulars and, secondly, when there has been gross violation of the instructions, which resulted in miscarriage of justice. In. The present case the Tribunal has found many irregularities which vitiated the evaluation. It may be pertinent to refer to some of them:--

(i) It may be observed that though in the letter, whereby the alleged remarks were communicated to the respondent, the period mentioned is 14-9-1988 to 31-12-1988 but before the Tribunal the case pleaded by the appellants was that the above evaluation by the Countersigning Officer is for the entire year 1988. In our view, the Tribunal has rightly observed that in the absence of evaluation for the period from 1-1-1988 to 13-9-1988 by the Reporting Officer, the Countersigning Officer could not have assessed the performance of the respondent for the above year. It may be pertinent to observe that the plea taken by the appellants before the Tribunal was that the respondent deliberately did not submit the A.C.R. Forms to the Reporting Officer and, therefore, the evaluation for the above period could not be made. The above plea is hardly sufficient to justify the above irregularity.

(ii) It was also opined by the Tribunal that the adverse remarks recorded by the Countersigning Officer were not consistent with the other remarks recorded by him in violation of para. 2.5 (iii) of the Guide to Performance Evaluation issued by the Cabinet Secretariat, inasmuch as though in Part VI (c) which is under the caption "integrity", against "honest" the word "no" has been recorded; and in Part VII (a), the above adverse remarks were recorded by the Countersigning Officer. However, in Part VI (b), the Countersigning Officer has opined that the respondent was fit for promotion on his turn and in Part VI (a), he has expressed his opinion that the respondent was a good officer. The above inconsistency apparently indicates that the Countersigning Officer has not applied his mind to the respondent's case properly.

5. In our view, the above two reasons were sufficient to set aside the above adverse remarks. There are other observations of the Tribunal, for example, as to the material about the respondent's reputation in the form of Resolution of the Bar Association and the private complaints. In this regard we may observe that it will be more or less impossible to prove the factum of corruption, but generally the evaluation is made by the Reporting Officer or the Countersigning Officer on the basis of the reputation which an officer enjoys. If the Reporting Officer and the Countersigning Officer have no personal motive tp damage the career of their subordinates, their evaluation on the above aspect cannot be interfered with by the Tribunal on the ground that the material before them was not sufficient to prove the charge of corruption. However, it is ture that before an officer is condemned for being corrupt on the basis of private complaints, he should be put to notice so that he may have an opportunity to act and conduct himself in a manner which may eliminate the possibility of malicious allegations of his being corrupt.

6. The Tribunal also found that the entire report was not conveyed to the respondent in violation of the instructions but this finding seems to be based on surmises and conjectures as it was not even pleaded by the respondent in his memo. Of appeal before the Tribunal.

7. The upshot of the above discussion is that we maintain the judgment of the Tribunal for the above first two reasons with the modification that the department will get the evaluation for the performance of the respondent for the period from 1-1-1988 to 13-9-1988 by the Reporting Officer.

After that the remarks of the Reporting Officers for the above two periods shall be placed before the Countersigning Officer for his evaluation. The above appeal is disposed of in the above terms, with no order as to costs.