Central Civil Services (Classification, Control & Appeal) Rules, 1965 – rr.14, 13(2) – Procedure for imposing major penalties – Case relating to the trap case and the case of possessing assets disproportionate to known source of income against the government employee – Disciplinary proceedings against him – Issuance of chargesheets u/r.14, for imposing major penalties by the General Manager – Applications before the tribunal that the charge-sheets have been issued by an authority competent to inflict only minor penalties, thus, as the charge-sheet not issued with the approval of the disciplinary authority empowered to inflict major penalty, the charge-sheet itself is void; and to declare that the proceedings initiated under charge memos issued by the General Manager as void-ab-initio for want of approval from the appointing authority – Dismissal of the applications – However, the High Court allowed the writ petition by the employee holding that in cases where a charge-sheet has been issued u/r.14, by an authority empowered to inflict minor penalties, then the charge memo has to be approved by the authority which is competent to inflict major penalty – Correctness:
Held: Authority empowered to inflict minor penalties (in the instant case, the General Manager) can certainly issue a charge-sheet even for imposition of major penalties – There has been no violation of any statutory provision of law and the disciplinary proceedings were conducted strictly in consonance with procedure prescribed under the Rule – Initiation has been done by the General Manager and, thus, the issuance of charge-sheet by General Manager could not have been faulted upon by the High Court – Guilt of the respondent after following due process of law established – Inquiry does not suffer from any procedural irregularity and the charge-sheet has been issued by the competent disciplinary authority – Final order has been passed after following the due process of law by the competent disciplinary authority empowered to inflict major penalty and, thus, the tribunal rightly dismissed the application – Impugned order passed by the High Court set aside and proceedings initiated under charge memos both issued by General Manager held to be validly initiated. [Paras 13, 14, 16-19]
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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