The Punjab and Haryana High Court has upheld the dismissal of a Nagar Panchayat Section Officer convicted for abetting the suicide of a contractor amid allegations that he demanded bribes for clearing the contractor’s pending bills. The court ruled that the writ petition was liable to be dismissed “primarily finding no merit and on the ground of delay and laches as well”.Justice Namit Kumar held that the petitioner—a Section Officer in a Nagar Panchayat in Hoshiarpur district—had been convicted and sentenced to undergo five years’ rigorous imprisonment for the offence of abetment to the suicide of contractor.Justice Kumar concluded that there were sufficient grounds and reasons in the court’s considered opinion for awarding the punishment of dismissal from service. The petitioner had been convicted and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for five years for abetment to suicide of the contractor “who, after being subjected to harassment for almost one year, ended his life, by committing suicide”.Justice Kumar added and even otherwise there was no illegality or irregularity in the impugned orders of dismissal dated February 1, 2022, and order dated June 11 were “held to be legal, correct and valid and the same do not warrant any interference of this Court. The Bench also observed, “Needless to observe here that there is no order of any Court showing stay on conviction.”The petitioner had sought quashing of the February 1, 2022, order dismissing him from service and the June 11, 2026, order rejecting his departmental appeal, besides reinstatement with all consequential benefits, including arrears of salary and allowances.Justice Kumar’s bench, during the course of hearing, was told that an FIR was registered on December 31, 2016, under Sections 306 and 506 IPC on the statement of the contractor’s son alleging that the petitioner had demanded bribe for clearing bills relating to work executed by his father and had threatened to implicate him in false criminal cases.The petitioner was convicted by Hoshiarpur Sessions Judge on November 8, 2021, and sentenced on November 10, 2021, to undergo five years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 25,000, whereafter he was dismissed from service on February 1, 2022.The petitioner filed a departmental appeal on June 16, 2025. It was initially rejected on July 25, 2025, on account of a delay of 1,215 days. In an earlier writ petition, the High Court set aside that order on December 8, 2025, directing the appellate authority to reconsider the application for condonation of delay as well as the merits of the appeal after affording an opportunity of hearing. Pursuant to those directions, the appellate authority reconsidered the matter but again rejected the appeal on June 11, leading to the present writ petition.Before the High Court, the petitioner argued that he had been dismissed merely on account of his conviction under Sections 306 and 506 IPC and contended that those offences did not involve moral turpitude. He further submitted that the delay in filing the departmental appeal deserved to be condoned because, after his sentence was suspended on May 30, 2022, he remained engaged in pursuing his criminal appeal and making efforts to obtain a stay of conviction.The High Court rejected the submissions, observing that its earlier order had specifically directed the appellate authority in a “two-fold manner” to reconsider “the application for condonation of delay” and “the merits of the appeal as well.” It found that, unlike the earlier non-speaking order, the fresh appellate order had considered “each and every fact as well as the circumstance concerning the merit of the appeal”, including the conviction order, dismissal order, the issue of limitation, allegations of demand of bribe for clearing the victim’s bills, the complaint lodged against the petitioner, the counter FIR registered by him against the complainant and his brother, and the subsequent suicide of the contractor, before concluding that there existed “sufficient ground and reasoning for awarding punishment of dismissal of service.”The Bench held that the petitioner had furnished no explanation either in the departmental appeal or in the writ petition for not filing the statutory appeal within the prescribed period of 45 days from the dismissal order. It held that the plea that he remained occupied in trying to obtain a stay of conviction “is not a satisfactory ground to condone the inordinate delay of 1215 days in filing the departmental appeal.” The court further observed that the writ petition itself had been filed “after an inordinate delay of more than four years from the passing of the order of dismissal from service” and that “Such belated challenge is clearly hit by the doctrine of delay and laches.”