Draft

The Madras High Court recently upheld the decision of a nationalised bank to terminate an employee for producing fake boarding and lodging bills for reimbursement.

While refusing to interfere with the decision of the Appointing and Appellate authorities of the bank, the bench of Justice CV Karthikeyan observed that the Supreme Court has held that the high court cannot sit as a Court of Appeal against the orders of the officials of a bank rather it can only examine whether the proper procedure had been followed.

Regarding the argument of the sacked employee, who was a bank manager, that the punishment imposed on him was not proportionate to the charge against him, court said that this conclusion was the subjective satisfaction of the Appellate Authority and the high court could never review the same. 

"The punishment imposed will have to be necessarily declared as being proportionate to the charges and the Court cannot sit over as a further Appellate Authority and re-examine the same," it stated.

Further, the single judge bench added that if the doctrine of proportionality was to be considered, it had to be kept in mind that acts of such nature by a Branch Manager would only trigger a chain reaction among all other official staff.

"As a matter of fact, the petitioner had justified producing fake bills on the ground of precedents. In his own affidavit, he had stated that he had been informed that there were earlier occasions of officials producing fake bills and charges being dropped. That is not a chain reaction to be encouraged," court emphasised.