Judgment of the above
noted case bearing Writ Petition (Civil) No. 5337 of 2012 was delivered by
division bench of Hon’ble High Court of Delhi comprising of Mr. Justice Pradeep
Nandrajog and Mr. Justice Manmohan Singh on 29th August, 2012.
Question in issue in
above said writ petition was “whether non-information of being arrested in a
criminal case amounts to such a grave mis-conduct where severe punishment like
compulsory retirement may be awarded?”
Facts of the case is
that while on sanctioned leave, the petitioner was arrested on February 17,
2011 in FIR No.32/2011 PS Kalyanpur, Kanpur, U.P. for offences punishable under
Sections 147/323/325/308 IPC and remained in judicial custody till February 25,
2011 when he was admitted to bail. Thereafter, the petitioner got his leave
extended up to March 23, 2011 and joined duties on March 24, 2011 but did not
inform the department that he had been arrested during his leave and that the
criminal case was pending. Information was received. When department came to
know of petitioner’s arrest through other sources, it began departmental proceedings
and issued charge sheet to the petitioner for the offence of not informing superior
officers of his detention as the same amounts to mis-conduct as per Office Memo
No.30/59/54-Est(A) dated February 25, 1995. Finally, petitioner was awarded
sentence to undergo compulsory retirement in above said departmental
proceedings.
Under this
circumstance, petitioner filed above said writ petition. After hearing both
sides, hon’ble bench as mentioned above opined that that the penalty of
compulsory retirement is disproportionate to the gravity of the offence i.e. not
reporting his being arrested and confined to prison for 9 days pertaining
to a complaint lodged against the petitioner and his family members by close
relations. Further, it was observed
that a penalty must bear a proportion to the wrong committed. A penalty which results in cessation of
service, be it dismissal or removal from service or compulsory retirement
should ordinarily be reserved for grave misconducts and the lesser penalties of
reduction in rank or reduction in the pay-scale by an appropriate number of
stages or withholding increments should be levied for misconducts which are not
of a grave kind.
In view of
dis-proportionate punishment, above said writ was disposed quashing the penalty
of compulsory retirement imposed upon the petitioner and with direction to
petitioner’s reinstatement without any back-wages, leaving it open to the
Competent Authority to levy an appropriate penalty upon the petitioner, but not
of a kind where the petitioner would lose his job.
No comments:
Post a Comment