'Sympathy cannot override law': Supreme Court upholds sacking over non-disclosure of criminal cases

The case concerned the appointment of a Sahayak Samiksha Adhikari in Uttar Pradesh, whose services were terminated after it was found that two criminal cases were pending against him, neither of which had been disclosed in his application form.

• Supreme Court overturns HC order, upholds termination of UP govt employee
• Disclosure of criminal cases is essential for public service jobs
• Non-disclosure of offences justifies strict action, court reaffirms

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The Supreme Court on Monday overturned an Allahabad High Court order that had reinstated a Uttar Pradesh government employee despite his failure to disclose pending criminal cases at the time of recruitment, underscoring that “sympathy cannot supplant law”.

A Bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and NK Singh held that disclosure of criminal antecedents is “not a simple procedural formality but a basic requirement” for public service, grounded in “fairness, integrity and public trust”. Setting aside the High Court’s view, the court invoked the maxim “dura lex, sed lex”, observing that “the law may be harsh, but the law is law”.

While expressing empathy for the individual, who now stands to lose his government job, the Bench made it clear that compassion cannot override legal principles. “Loss of a government job is not an easy loss to come to terms with,” the court said, but added that “awareness of consequences is a necessary component of actions”.

The court noted that government vacancies often draw “hundreds, and often thousands, of applicants” competing under the same conditions. In such a scenario, it said, “scrupulous vetting of every candidate becomes imperative and essential to ensure a level playing field and to protect the credibility of the selection process”. Withholding information about criminal antecedents, the Bench observed, “undermines this process by depriving the appointing authority of the opportunity to make a fully informed assessment of suitability”.

Clarifying the legal position, the court said that non-disclosure may not always be fatal to a candidature, depending on “the nature of the offence and accompanying circumstances”, but it nevertheless remains “a serious lapse”. The gravity, it added, “is significantly compounded when the non-disclosure is repeated, as it ceases to be accidental or inadvertent and instead reflects deliberate concealment”.

“Such conduct strikes at the core of trust reposed in candidates for public service, where honesty and transparency are indispensable attributes, and justifies a far stricter view by the authorities,” the Bench said.

The case concerned the appointment of a Sahayak Samiksha Adhikari in Uttar Pradesh, whose services were terminated after it was found that two criminal cases were pending against him, neither of which had been disclosed in his application form. Both a single judge and a division bench of the Allahabad High Court had earlier quashed the termination, describing the non-disclosure as “trivial”.

The Uttar Pradesh government challenged those rulings before the Supreme Court, which has now upheld the termination and reaffirmed that “proper and complete disclosure” is a non-negotiable requirement for government employment.