Sushree Mohanty
The Orissa High Court has rejected a plea documented by a judicial officer testing his mandatory retirement request. The said plea was filed a decade ago by Rama Chandra Mohanty. Mohanty, who was appointed as a Civil Judge (senior division) at Koraput, was issued a notice to resign from his post at 50 years old.
Subsequently, the Law Department issued a notice in the matter. Mohanty had looked for subduing of the request for mandatory/compulsory retirement from the job and for all the benefits around the same time.
The said request was lying unheard till it was rejected until recently. While dismissing the appeal, the two-judge bench comprising of Chief Justice S Muralidharand Justice BP Routray said, “Upon a cautious examination of the whole assistance record of the candidate and the materials created before us, we do not perceive any reason to see the request for compulsory retirement smeared with any malice intentions or not justified in the public interest”.
The bench further explained that the pending disciplinary procedures against Mohanty and the charges levelled against him are in contradiction with what he had asserted earlier.
Additionally, his service records, complaints filed against him, and documents therein, present an image that is in objection with what the applicant has looked to project. “Not just the adverse comments were properly imparted to him, but the materials on record legitimize the said order of compulsory retirement,” the bench stated. Mohanty had joined the Odisha Judicial Service as a probation munsif and was later given the post of Judicial Magistrate First Class.
In the wake of transferring from one place to another, he was promoted to the post of Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate and was then given a promotion as a Civil Judge later.