Administrative law – Disciplinary proceedings – Mandatory compliances by the disciplinary authority – On facts, memorandum of charge issued to the officer – Disciplinary enquiry held and seven out of the eight charges proved against the charged officer – Issuance of notice to the charged officer – Thereafter, the charged officer dismissed from service – Challenge to – Tribunal set aside the dismissal order – Said order upheld by the High Court – Correctness: Held: Disciplinary Authority must indicate an independent application of mind to the findings in the enquiry report followed by opportunity of hearing to the charged officer and only thereafter, the order imposing a major penalty like dismissal from service can be passed against the charged officer – On facts, action of the Corporation in dismissing the charged officer from service suffered from fatal lacuna of having been arrived at with sheer nonapplication of mind in addition to being non-speaking – Neither of the two mandatory compliances carried out – Other than giving a blind approval to the show cause notice and the agenda item albeit referring to the reply of the charged officer, the Board’s Resolution did not reflect any independent or objective application of mind by the members of the Board to the enquiry report either individually or collectively – Enquiry report sufferred from a fatal lacuna which goes to the root of the matter thereby vitiating the proceedings – No witness was examined on behalf of the prosecution during the course of departmental enquiry – Enquiry report nowhere records that any document was admitted by the charged officer – Since no evidence was led on behalf of the department in the enquiry proceedings, the enquiry report was based on no evidence whatsoever – Thus, no error by the tribunal in allowing the application filed by the charged officer and the High Court rightly upheld the same. [Paras 3, 16, 19, 21, 22]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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