Chandigarh, Sept. 17 -- A Punjab and Haryana high court division bench has slammed its own former judge, justice (retd) Alok Singh, for making "unsubstantiated remarks" in the annual confidential report of a judicial officer, which led to latter's compulsory retirement. "It is difficult to comprehend that an officer who had no adverse remarks in his entire career spanning 30 years, behaved and conducted himself in such a manner, compelling the concerned administrative judge to categorise the petitioner from 'Very Good' in 2009-10, down to 'C' (doubtful integrity)," the bench of chief justice Sheel Nagu and justice Sanjiv Berry recorded while declaring that September 2011 decision of compulsory retirement of the petitioner in public interest at the age of 58 years is "vitiated by illegality, impropriety and mala fide in law". The petition was from Dr Shiva Sharma, who was ordered to be compulsorily retired by Haryana government on the recommendation of the high court. Sharma had joined Haryana Civil Service (judicial) in the year 1981 and was designated as district and sessions judge in 2009, before being compulsorily retired. Then administrative judge of Sirsa was justice (retd) Alok Singh, who gave adverse remarks for the period between November 2010 to March 2011, a period of five months only. Justice (retd) Vinod Kumar Sharma was designated as the administrative judge of sessions division, Sirsa, for that year. However, he was transferred out of high court and he did not record any remarks in the ACR of the petitioner, for the appraisal year 2010-2011. Justice Singh was made administrative judge in the midst of the financial year. The petitioner had moved the high court against his compulsory retirement order in 2012. The court underlined that even though compulsory retirement order in public interest is not a punishment, the same has to be issued only after due application of mind, to the relevant material/evidence available on record. "While assessing an officer to be entitled or not, the concerned competent authority needs to scrutinise the entire service records of the officer right from the initial appointment upto the last appraisal year, with more emphasis on the performance in the last few years of service," it said. The court said that in the present case, "irrelevant material" of earlier adverse remarks recorded in some of the ACRs was also taken into account, which had become inconsequential, on account of the petitioner having been subsequently promoted and designated through a selection process. "The irrelevant material of the adverse remarks in the last five months of the ACR for the appraisal year 2010-2011, recorded by the then administrative judge, Hon'ble Mr. Justice Alok Singh were further taken into account, by ignoring the fact that an officer who had earned 'Good' or 'Very Good' remarks throughout his entire service career of 30 years, cannot overnight become bad to the extent of rendering his 'Integrity Doubtful'," the court recorded. The court said that the least which the then administrative judge ought to have done, was to conduct a covert vigilance inquiry, asking for the response of the petitioner. None of these steps were adopted. Instead, the short-cut method was adopted by declaring the petitioner to be unfit to be retained in service at the age of 58 years, it said. "No man of ordinary prudence can take such a decision, and, therefore, the impugned decision assailed herein abhorrent to the Wednesbury principle. The competent authority in all probability did not notice the element of malafide in law, which became palpable in the present case," it said while quashing the compulsory retirement order and further holding that the petitioner would be entitled to all consequential benefits....