Appointment of persons convicted of offences involving moral turpitude and disciplinary action against Government servants on criminal conviction – Clarification – Reg.
Ref: Memo. No. 4375/Ser-A/56-8. GA. (Ser-A), Dt. 31-5-1957.
1. In the Memo. cited, the Government referred to General Rμle 12(b)(ii) of Part II of the State and Subordinate Services, which provides that no person shall be appointed to any service by direct recruitment, unless he satisfies the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission or the appointing authority that his character and antecedents are such as to qualify him for such service and clarified that persons convicted of offences involving moral turpitude should be deemed to be of bad-character and that they should, under the said rule, be ineligible for entry into Government service but in the case of persons convicted for other offences not involving ‘moral turpitude’ like driving a vehicle or possessing arms without renewing the licence when the period of licence has expired, causing disturbance to the neighbours by playing instruments or failure to submit Income Tax returns etc., there is no need to impose such a bar for entry into Government Service and each case may, however, be decided on merits.
Sub-rule (3) of Rule 19 of the Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules provides that the provisions relating to the procedure to be followed before inflicting a penalty shall not apply where it is proposed to impose on a member of a service any of the penalties on grounds of conduct which led to his conviction on a criminal charge.
2. In the above context, a question has arisen as to determination of ‘moral turpitude’ involved in a case of conviction on a criminal charge. The term 'moral turpitude' has not been defined in the Service Rules. In Ramanatha Ayyar Law Lexicon it is noted that it is not ‘moral turpitude’, when no wrong is contemplated, but is unintentionally committed through error of judgment.
According to Webster’s dictionary ‘moral turpitude’, means a quality of crime involving grave infringement of the moral sentiments of the community.
3. In Mangilal vs. Chekkilal, (AIR
1963, Allahabad 527 at page 528) the Court considered the scope of the
expression ‘moral turpitude’ at length, as below:
“From consideration of the
dictionary meaning of the words ‘moral’ and ‘turpitude’ as well as the real
ratio decidendi of the cases, the principle which emerges, appears to be that
the question whether a certain offence involves moral turpitude or not will
necessarily depend on the circumstances in which offence was committed. It is not
every punishable act that can be considered to be an offence involving moral turpitude.
Had that been so, the qualification involving ‘moral turpitude’ would not have
been used by the legislature and would have disqualified every person who had
been convicted of any offence.
The tests which should ordinarily be
applied for judging whether’ a, certain offence does or does not involve moral
turpitude appear to be (1) whether the act leading to a conviction was such a
could shock the moral conscience of the society in general, (2) whether the
motive which led to the act was a base one, and (3) whether on account of the
act having been committed the perpetrator could be considered to be a depraved
character or a person who was to be looked down by the society.
No absolute standard can be laid down for deciding whether a particular act is to be considered as one involving moral turpitude but the above are the general tests which should be applied and which should in most cases be a correct conclusion on the question”.
4. The Heads of Departments are
requested to keep in mind the above guidelines while dealing with cases of
persons for entry into Govt. service and in dealing with the cases of
Government employees convicted on any criminal charge under the Civil Services
(Classification. Control and Appeal) Rules.
