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The Apex Court recently quashed the disciplinary actions taken against an employee for proven procedural lapses and directed that he be reinstated with consequential benefits.

Bench comprising Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Hrishikesh Roy addressed the instant appeal against an order of High Court whereby the Court had quashed disciplinary actions taken against the respondent.

“If we may say so, the fairness of the departmental proceedings is obvious on the fact that all charges relating to bribery had been held in favour of the respondent and those charges have been rejected.” – stated the Bench.

Factual Matrix:

The respondent joined Department of Posts as Postal Assistant in the year 1991 and earned his promotion to Assistant Superintendent of Posts in the year 2008, a Group-B Gazetted cadre post.

A charge memo bearing dated 13.04.2010 was issued to him by the Disciplinary Authority, Department of Posts under Rule-14 of the Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965.

The Memo enumerated 9 charges.

Though, certain charges were related to procedural lapses in discharge of duties, another set of charges dealt with alleged illegal gratification received by way of bribes.

The respondent contended that,

“…the Memo at the threshold itself on the ground that the charges included allegations of bribery and thus had a vigilance angle. As such, it was averred that it could not have been issued without prior approval of the Central Vigilance Officer (hereinafter referred as “CVO”) as mandated by a circular dated 18.01.2005 of the Department of Posts, Ministry of Communication and IT. The Circular advised that all cases of officers below the level of Group ‘A’ involving vigilance angle should be referred to the Directorate for consideration and advice by the CVO of the relevant department. Even for closing the cases after a preliminary enquiry report, the procedure was stated to be mandatory.”

The decision of the High Court upheld memo released by authority. It was challenged before the Supreme Court.

However, since the departmental proceeding against the respondent culminated in an adverse report against him, another memo dated 24-03-2017 was issued.

In terms of the 2017 Memo, none of the charges of bribery were made out against the respondent but all charges relating to procedural lapses on the part of the respondent were held to have been proved. The respondent was inflicted with a punishment of compulsory retirement from service with immediate effect. Therefore, the Bench had disposed of the matter with the liberty to the respondent to re-agitate the issue by challenging the order of punishment.

As stated in the order of the Supreme Court, the order of punishment was challenged by the respondent before Central Administrative Tribunal on the ground of non-compliance with the Circular. The Tribunal took the view that, since the bribery charges were not proved, the case of the respondent could not be said to be prejudiced by not referring it to the CVO.

However, regarding the punishment issue, the Tribunal found that the punishment of compulsory retirement was unduly harsh and shockingly disproportionate considering that none of the bribery charges had been found sustainable. To that extent, the order of the disciplinary authority was set aside with a direction to impose an appropriate minor penalty.

In appeal, High Court had set aside the order of the Tribunal and directed to reinstate the respondent into service with all consequential benefits.

Taking into account the factual matrix of the case, the top court relied upon a Supreme Court judgment in  Moni Shankar v. Union of India (2008) 3 SCC 484 and opined that, if procedural safeguards are provided the same should be observed as they prevent any arbitrary exercise of power and that a departmental instruction cannot totally be ignored.

The bench further observed that, “the appellants was retributive in character as he had earlier endeavoured to highlight the manipulations in the result of Postal Service Group-B cadre examinations and the legal proceedings that followed therefrom.”

“We find it difficult to disturb the findings of the disciplinary authority insofar as the procedural lapses are concerned. It really shows that there was negligence on the part of the respondent in performing his duties. That being so, we do not feel it was appropriate for the High Court to have set aside the result of the proceedings against the respondent by giving him a clean chit on the issue as a consequence of the Circular not being followed. It would be right to say that suppose these charges of bribery had not been levelled and only procedural lapses were examined, this plea would not have been open to the respondent.”
- noted the bench.

Hence, observing that the nature of charges found against the respondent could hardly be one to call for a major penalty, keeping in mind that there was no bribery charge,“Anyone can make mistakes. The consequences of mistakes should not be unduly harsh”.

The impugned judgment of the High Court was set aside and the order of the Tribunal was restored.

Case title: Union of India v. P. Balasubrahmanayam, 2021