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Synopsis

The Supreme Court has on September 4, 2024 said if recording of a prima facie satisfaction before holding a departmental inquiry is mandatory under the statute, it cannot be done otherwise to terminate services of a delinquent employee.

The apex court upheld a decision by the Kerala High Court to quash an order for not following the procedure in terminating services of a professor for failing to resume duties in Kerala Agricultural University in 2019 after 20 years of long leave without allowance to take up employment in Community College, Pennsylvania, USA. 

"It is a cardinal principle of law that if a statute provides for doing a thing in a particular manner than it should be done in that fashion only and not otherwise. Therefore, recording of satisfaction before holding a departmental inquiry was mandatory," a bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Pankaj Mithal said.

The court noted no material at any stage had been brought on record to establish that any such satisfaction was recorded before appointing an inquiry committee and passing of the order of termination by the Vice Chancellor on the basis of the inquiry report. 

"A plain reading of Rule 15(2)(a) of the Kerala Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1960, which is applicable for imposing major penalties specifically lays down that the disciplinary authority or the appointing authority or any other authority, empowered by Government in this behalf before holding a regular disciplinary inquiry, must record its satisfaction that there is a prima facie case for taking action against the delinquent employee so as to hold a formal inquiry against him," the bench said. 

In other words, the rule in explicit terms provided for recording a prima facie satisfaction for holding a disciplinary inquiry against any delinquent employee, the bench added.

It is for this reason that the procedure was not followed that the division bench on August 26, 2022 allowed the writ petition after setting aside the order of the single judge of December 21, 2021, the bench pointed out. 

Dismissing a petition by the University, the bench said, "We do not find any flaw with the reasoning adopted by the division bench and as such do not deem it necessary to interfere with the judgment and order impugned herein."

The high court had quashed the order of July 30, 2021 passed by the Vice Chancellor of the Kerala Agricultural University terminating the services of T P Murali.

Court also found that the respondent professor had expressed his intention to resume his duties on the expiry of the leave period, which he could not do on account of unprecedented circumstances of his bad health and restriction on travel due to COVID-19. 

"The bona fides of the respondent in this regard stand fortified by his e-mails and the medical papers on record," the bench said.

The respondent Murali had joined the University as an Assistant Professor on March 24, 1988. After having worked for about 11 years, he took a long leave without allowance of 20 years from September 05, 1999, to September 04, 2019, in four blocks of five years each to take up employment in the USA.

He failed to resume his duties on the expiry of the leave in 2019 as he was in the USA at that time and was allegedly suffering from serious ailments. It was alleged that he had expressed his intention to rejoin duty via e-mail but still did not rejoin, allegedly for reasons of his health and, thereafter, due to intervening COVID-19. 

He could only return to India by the first Vande Bharat flight in July 2020 and requested to rejoin but was not allowed, rather he was handed over the Memo of Charge on July 15, 2020, for unauthorised leave and statutory violations related to misconduct.

He was terminated on the basis of a three-member inquiry committee report.

His writ petition against the decision was dismissed by a single judge bench of the high court. The division bench, however, on his appeal, held the university had not followed the procedure prescribed under the rules for holding the disciplinary inquiry and that he was genuinely and bona fidely forbidden from resuming his duties in time.

Case Title: Kerala Agricultural University & Anr Vs T P Murali @ Murali Thavara Panen & Anr