Supreme Court of India· 11 August 2026

Who bears the onus of proving that a candidate lacked awareness of a criminal antecedent at the time of making a declaration?

SHATRUGHN YADAV v. THE FERTILIZERS AND CHEMICALS TRAVANCORE LTD. (F.A.C.T.) AND OTHERS

2026 INSC 829 · Civil Appeal No. [not yet numbered] of 2026 (Arising out of SLP(Civil) No. 7197 of 2026)
Coram: Augustine George Masih; Sanjay Karol

🔖 Save this judgment 🔔 Follow s.323 Indian Penal Code, 1860 📬 Get today's judgments

View the original judgment PDFFree to read. To download it — or the LexStreak typeset copy with the headnote and Points of Law — create an account; downloads are part of the Pro plan.

Answer

The onus lies on the candidate, who must substantiate the claim before the employer with cogent and reliable material; a bare plea of ignorance, without such material, will not suffice to escape liability for suppression.

Headnote

Service Law — Suppression of criminal antecedents — Termination of service — Bona fide non-disclosure — Two-pronged enquiry — Service Law — Suppression of criminal antecedents — Knowledge is a pre-requisite for suppression — Held: Knowledge of a fact is a necessary pre-requisite for its non-disclosure; suppression presupposes an awareness of what is suppressed. Where a criminal antecedent is not shown to have been within the candidate's knowledge, he cannot be held to have suppressed it. (¶31) Service Law — Suppression of criminal antecedents — Two-pronged enquiry before termination — Held further: Before terminating services for suppression of criminal antecedents, the employer must undertake a two-pronged enquiry: whether there was in truth any suppression, having regard to the candidate's knowledge; and whether the facts, including gravity of the offence and the post, merit termination. (¶24) Service Law — Suppression of criminal antecedents — Onus on candidate to prove lack of awareness — Held further: Lack of awareness of a criminal antecedent is itself a fact that must be established by the candidate with cogent and reliable material; a bare plea of ignorance, without such material, will not suffice to escape liability. (¶32) Service Law — Termination without application of mind — Reinstatement — Held further: Since the authorities presumed that a criminal antecedent automatically rendered the appellant ineligible without the two-pronged enquiry, the termination is illegal and without application of mind; he is directed to be reinstated with consequential benefits, backwages restricted to 50%. (¶33, 34, 35)

In the Court's own words

Paragraph 32We hasten to add that such lack of awareness of the existence of a criminal antecedent is itself a fact that must be established by the candidate, the onus being upon him to substantiate the claim before the employer. A bare plea of ignorance, without cogent and reliable material to assert such claim, will not suffice to escape liability. Were it otherwise, the requirement of disclosure in verification forms would be rendered illusory, open to circumvention by simply pleading ignorance. In the present case, as discussed above, we find that the appellant's consistent claim of bona fide ignorance of the NCR stands duly established by documentary evidence on record.

Acts & Sections

s.323 Indian Penal Code, 1860s.504 Indian Penal Code, 1860

One judgment a day. That's the whole habit.

Read the full text of SHATRUGHN YADAV v. THE FERTILIZERS AND CHEMICALS TRAVANCORE LTD. (F.A.C.T.) AND OTHERS — and get the Supreme Court's output as a five-minute daily read, with plain-language headnotes and the questions each judgment settles.

Create my free account

Free forever plan · 30 seconds · data stays in India

Open the full judgment →

Also decided in this judgment

In service law, does suppression of a criminal antecedent in a verification form require that the candidate had knowledge of the antecedent?What two-pronged enquiry must an employer undertake before terminating an employee's services for suppression of criminal antecedents?Can termination of service be an automatic consequence of the existence of criminal antecedents disclosed or discovered after appointment?

Plain-language answer prepared by the LexStreak Editorial Desk — verify against the judgment. Source: Supreme Court of India. Corrections