Supreme Court of India (K. K. Mathew and M. H. Beg, JJ.; judgment of the Court delivered by Mathew, J.), November 22, 1973, in Civil Appeal No. 1110 of 1971 (by certificate) from the Allahabad High Court's judgment and decree dated September 8, 1970 in Special Appeal No. 826 of 1969: appeal by the State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors. against the quashing of the order dated August 12, 1968 reverting Sughar Singh, a permanent Head Constable officiating as Platoon Commander in the combined cadre of Sub-Inspector, Armed Police/Platoon Commander, to his substantive post of Head Constable. HELD: (i) an order of reversion is a 'reduction in rank' within article 311 only if the officer has a right to the post from which he is reverted; even without such a right, reversion cannot be imposed in a manner showing punitive intention or casting a stigma, or carrying penal consequences such as forfeiture of pay or allowances, loss of seniority, or stoppage or postponement of promotion, in which cases article 311 is attracted; (ii) on the facts the reversion carried no stigma and no penal consequence, deprivation of an officiating post being its usual incident, and only penal consequences, not motive, are relevant; (iii) nevertheless the complaint of discrimination was sustained: out of a group of about 200 officers, most junior to the respondent, he alone was reverted, with no administrative reason (post not abolished), the State's standing counsel admitting before the High Court that the foundation was the adverse character-roll entry of 1966; this extreme discrimination violated articles 14 and 16 and made the order liable to be quashed. Appeal dismissed with costs. Parshotam Lal Dhingra applied; Gajendra Singh, Raghavendrachar, Jeewan Ram, Madhav, Abraham, Kulkarni and Shiva Bhikshuk Mishra followed; Sukh Raj Bahadur, Ram Narayan Das, Lacy, Madan Gopal, Jagdish Mitter, Benjamin and Ram Gopal Chaturvedi referred to.
