A Haryana government polytechnic lecturer was acquitted of criminal charges over an allegedly falsified experience certificate and faced no finding of misconduct in departmental proceedings, prompting the Punjab and Haryana High Court to rule that back pay and allowances covering more than eight years of suspension be restored to him.
Justice Harpreet Singh Brar granted Rachna Gupta's petition, with the bench striking down a Haryana government directive dated 20 December 2022 that had reclassified her suspension — spanning from 26 June 2014 through 2 January 2023 — as "leave of kind due". Gupta holds a senior lecturer post in the computer engineering field.
The High Court ordered that the entire disputed period be counted as active duty, entitling her to full salary and allowances — reduced by whatever subsistence payments had already been made — together with any connected service entitlements and annual interest at six per cent, all to be disbursed no later than three months after the petition was lodged.
In addressing the legal standing of the phrase "honourable acquittal," the bench noted that the term carries no grounding in any statute. The bench held that what governs in such matters is not the label a criminal court attaches to its ruling but rather the underlying substance of that ruling, noting that criminal proceedings yield only two possible outcomes — a finding of guilt or a finding of no guilt — and that the operative content of any acquittal is to be drawn from the applicable rule and from what the judgment actually determines.
The court observed that 27 witnesses called by the prosecution had given testimony broadly aligned with the state's account, yet the central factual question at the heart of the matter remained unestablished by that body of evidence.
Rachna Gupta was appointed to a senior lecturer post within the computer engineering department through a competitive selection process run by the Haryana Public Service Commission, with her tenure beginning in September 2003. A recruitment document from a Karnal college — an experience certificate covering the period from 24 July 1995 through 30 September 1996 — was placed under scrutiny after questions arose over whether it had been falsified.
A formal complaint — naming the petitioner alongside 13 other individuals — was lodged in November 2009 under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act, following a probe conducted by the state Vigilance Bureau. An internal disciplinary process was set in motion against her, resulting in a suspension that took effect on 26 June 2014.
On 29 January 2016, a ruling handed down by the Additional Sessions Judge-cum-Special Judge posted at Karnal cleared both her and the co-accused of the charges against them. An appeal lodged against the acquittal was treated as withdrawn and closed out by the court on 27 November 2019.
On 20 December 2022, authorities withdrew the pending departmental charge-sheet against the petitioner, and by January 2023 she had been returned to her post. The suspension window was counted against whatever leave entitlement had already accrued.
Acting through her legal representative, advocate Edward Augustine George, the petitioner took the matter to court on the grounds that converting the period into leave required her agreement. Prosecutors contended that the acquittal rested on a benefit-of-doubt standard, that criminal and departmental proceedings operate under distinct evidentiary thresholds, and that dropping the charge-sheet reflected a measured rather than punitive approach by the administration.
The bench drew a distinction between an administrative label of leniency and a formal finding of misconduct, holding that the former could not independently sustain the financial consequences attached to suspension. The court grounded that position in the state's own concession that no penalty had been imposed on the petitioner and that the departmental charge-sheet had been withdrawn before any determination of misconduct was ever made.
