Supreme Court Dismisses P&H High Court's Petition Challenging HC Decision Quashing Compulsory Retirement Of District Judge

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition filed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court challenging the High Court's decision to set aside the compulsory retirement of a District Judge.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, observing that the High Court's view was a possible one, refused to interfere with the judgment which granted relief to the judicial officer.

The issue was with respect to the 2011 order passed by the State of Haryana ordering the compulsory retirement of District Judge Dr. Shiva Sharma at the age of 58 years. The State's order was pusruant to a Full Court decision of the P&H High Court.

Sharma challenged the order before the High Court. In September 2025, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Sanjiv Berry set aside the compulsory retirement order. The High Court also recorded in its judgment criticised one of its former judges, who was the supervising judge of the judicial officer, for making baseless entries in the ACR. The judgment held that the HC Judge had recorded adverse remarks against Sharma in the Annual Confidential Remarks for about 5 months in 2010-11, although the officer consistently had earned 'Good' and 'Very Good' remarks in his 30 years of service.

The adverse remarks made by the High Court Judge were found to be "not based on any written complaints, verified material or inquiry", rather they were founded on unsubstantiated material or allegations. The High Court therefore quashed the compulsory retirement order as "vitiated by illegality, impropriety and mala fide in law." The bench held that the petitioner is further entitled to all consequential benefits including notional seniority and pay fixation.

Challenging this judgment, the High Court, on its administrative side, approached the Supreme Court by way of SLP. Senior Advocate Dr S Muralidhar, appearing for the High Court, submitted, "Sometimes you may not get concrete information, but the bar generally has a view."

The CJI then asked about the "concrete information" in the judgment against the HC judge who made the ACR. Justice Bagchi noted that the judicial officer was promoted in 2009, and post-promotion, the adverse remarks were only during the period of 5 months.

The bench however appreciated that the High Court Chief Justice chose to challenge the judgment passed by a bench led by the Chief Justice himself. "It is very fair that the Chief Justice decided to file the SLP after the decision of the Chief Justice, one of the best examples of fairness," Justice Bagchi said.

CJI Surya Kant recalled that, while as a judge of the High Court, he had interfered with some orders of the Full Court, and had quashed the dismissal of the judge.

The bench ultimately dismissed the SLP, observing that the exercise of jurisdiction under Article 136 was not warranted.

Case : High Court of Punjab and Haryana v. Shiva Sharma and another | Diary No. 446-2026