Sealed cover procedure cannot rest on FIR alone; pending criminal prosecution requires charge-sheet or cognizance.

Mere registration of an FIR does not, by itself, justify use of the sealed cover procedure for promotion. The governing office memoranda require departmental or criminal proceedings to have reached the stage of pending prosecution contemplated by the applicable rules, and criminal proceedings are treated as instituted only when the Magistrate takes cognizance of the complaint or police report. Where no charge-sheet has been filed and no cognizance has been taken, the employee cannot be treated as facing pending criminal prosecution for sealed cover purposes. On that basis, the sealed cover procedure was held to have been wrongly applied and the DPC recommendation was directed to be opened and considered for promotion.

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Issues: Whether the sealed cover procedure could be applied to the petitioner's promotion case merely because an FIR had been registered, in the absence of a charge-sheet or cognizance by the criminal court.

Analysis: The governing principle for sealed cover cases is that departmental or criminal proceedings must have reached the stage contemplated by the applicable office memoranda. The expression "prosecution in respect of criminal charge is pending" is to be understood in the sense explained by the Supreme Court and applied by the Court in earlier precedent, namely that mere registration of an FIR or preliminary investigation does not suffice. The Court also noted that the later office memorandum adopts the criminal-proceedings standard from the pension rules, under which criminal proceedings are deemed instituted only when the complaint or police report is taken cognizance of by the Magistrate. Since no charge-sheet had been filed and no cognizance had been taken, the petitioner could not be treated as facing pending criminal prosecution for sealed cover purposes.

Conclusion: The sealed cover procedure was wrongly adopted, and the petitioner was entitled to have his DPC recommendation opened and considered for promotion.

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