The Supreme Courtroom has stayed the reinstatement of senior AGMUT cadre officer Rinku Dhugga, who was compulsorily retired from service following an argument through which she and her husband had been accused of clearing the operating monitor at south Delhi’s Thyagaraj Stadium to stroll their canine.
Her obligatory retirement was put aside by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) on Might 7, 2025, a choice later upheld by the Delhi Excessive Courtroom on April 15, 2026. The Union authorities challenged the reinstatement order earlier than the Supreme Courtroom.
Issuing discover to the 1994-batch officer on the Centre’s plea, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, together with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, mentioned: “Within the meantime, the reinstatement of the respondent shall stay stayed.” The order handed on September 7, made public now, allowed two weeks for the officer to reply and posted the matter for additional listening to on October 13.
Dhugga had confronted public criticism in 2022 after athletes at Thyagraj Stadium complained that they had been allegedly requested to depart earlier than their scheduled observe time in order that she and her husband, additionally a serving AGMUT officer, might use the monitor to stroll their canine. Dhugga, nevertheless, has denied the allegations.
Following the controversy, each officers had been transferred out of Delhi and Dhugga joined as principal secretary in Arunachal Pradesh. On August 7, 2023, she was served with an order of obligatory retirement by the Division of Personnel and Coaching (DoPT).
Additionally Learn: ‘Enquiry panel can’t order FIRs over CJP protests’: CJI-led bench
The Centre, represented by extra solicitor common (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati, knowledgeable the courtroom that the excessive courtroom had failed to think about the intense grounds on which the overview committee had advisable Dhugga’s obligatory retirement.
ASG Bhati mentioned the committee took into consideration her confidential appraisal experiences and remarks made by supervisory authorities between 2014-15 and 2018-19. The committee noticed that Dhugga confirmed a steady tendency to proceed on unauthorised depart with out acquiring prior approval from the competent authority throughout her service tenure.
For 2014-15 and 2015-16, then Delhi lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung recorded hostile remarks describing Dhugga as “unreliable”, “non-punctual” and an “common officer”.
Within the 2017-19 interval, then Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal recorded in her service information that she “lacked dedication, sense of accountability in official dispensation” and had a “laidback angle” and “insensitiveness in direction of public curiosity”.
Additionally Learn: SC directs reputation loss compensation for compulsorily retired bureaucrat
The excessive courtroom, nevertheless, famous that aside from these hostile remarks, her grading within the earlier years was excellent which made her eligible for promotion. Additional the excessive courtroom was of the view that obligatory retirement supposed to weed out “deadwood” from the service, an outline it discovered inapplicable to Dhugga.