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2006(9) Supreme 883
SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
(From Calcutta High Court)
Arijit Pasayat and Lokeshwar Singh Panta, JJ.
West Bengal State Electricity Board - Appellant
versus
Dilip Kumar Ray - Respondent
Civil Appeal No. 5188 of 2006
(Arising out of SLP (C) No. 23556 of 2004)
Decided on 24-11-2006
Counsel for the Parties :
For the Appellant : M.N. Krishnamani, Sr. Advocate, Deepak Bhattacharya, Chittaranjan Panda, Souragajit Pani, Vipin Kumar Sayane and Pravir Choudhary, Advocates.
For the Respondent : Dipak Kumar Jena, Ghanshyam Joshi, Ms. Minakshi Jena and Pabitra Kumar Biswal, Advocates.
Held : While it is true that legitimate indignation does not fall within the ambit of malicious act, in almost all legal inquiries, intention, as distinguished from motive is the all important factor. In common parlance, a malicious act has been equated with intentional act without just cause or excuse.(Para 35)
A bare perusal of the averments made in the plaint show that they are extremely vague, lacking in details and after the learned trial judge held that the Board alone was responsible because it was not established that any individual officer was responsible for it and dispute only have been revealed by the high-power enquiry which the court was incompetent to direct, the award for damages is clearly indefensible. The High Courts judgment suffers from various infirmities. Firstly, it has taken a confused view of the matter. It failed to notice that the trial court itself had held "it was highly probable" that the plaintiff was suspended for extraneous reasons. This conclusion is based on surmises and conjectures. This had not been established. As noted above, the High Court noted that the Trial Court itself held that the plaintiff was not entitled to damages for defamation. But while affirming the judgment and decree, it held that the damages granted for harassment must be read as damages for malicious prosecution causing harassment. To say the least, all the conclusions are confusing, contradictory and do not convey any sense. Looked at from any angle the impugned judgment of the High Court is indefensible and is set aside.(Para 36)
(ii) Words and Phrases - Word ‘MALICE’ - Means in law wrongful intention - It means a wrongful act done intentionally without just cause or excuse.(Paras 14, 15, 16, 17, 31 and 32)
(iii) Words and Phrases - Word ‘Malicious’ - Means ‘done with malice or an evil design’ - ‘Malicious’ means a fixed hate - Malicious abuse of legal process - Meaning.(Paras 21, 26 & 27)
Key Points: - The court set aside the High Court's judgment and awarded costs against the Electricity Board (!) (!) . - Malice means wrongful intention without just cause or excuse, and malicious prosecution requires lack of probable cause and termination in favor of the defendant (!) (!) . - The suit for damages was not maintainable because the allegations were vague and no individual officers were found responsible, only a high-power enquiry (!) (!) .
JUDGMENT
Arijit Pasayat, J. - Leave granted.
2. Challenge in this Appeal is to the order passed by a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court dismissing appellants appeal questioning correctness of the order passed by a learned 7th Assistant District Judge at Alipore, 24, Parganas (South). By the judgment of the trial court the appellant and its functionarie were held to be liable to pay sum of Rs.1,00,000/- i.e. Rs.50,000/- for harassment of the plaintiff-respondent no.1 in this appeal and Rs.50,000/- for loss of his reputation. The High Court upheld the judgment and decree of the trial court.
3. Filtering out unnecessary details the background facts are as follows:
Respondent no.1 was an employee of the appellant No.1-Board and disciplinary proceeding was initiated against him and a First Information Report (in short the FIR) was lodged against him and others per alleged misconduct and commission of various offences. Initially, the respondent No.1 was placed under suspension for alleged acts of misconduct while functioning as the Superintending Engineer, pending investigation drawal and disposal of the disciplinary proceedings against him. Since no charge sheet was issued within a period of four months a writ petition was filed by the respondent No.1 for quashing departmental proceedings. The writ petition was disposed of directing the Board to issue the charge sheet. Accordingly the charge sheet was issued on 17.1.1986 containing 10 charges. Respondent No.1 submitted his reply to the said charge sheet inter alia denying and disputing each and all of the charges leveled against him. He prayed for permission to inspect certain documents and to take copies thereof. Since the said prayer was not accepted, another writ petition was filed on 13.9.1986 before the High Court. In the said writ petition order passed by the High Court was with to the effect that the enquiry should continue upon proper inspection being granted to all documents for which inspection had been offered, excepting three items. It was further directed that the enquiry should commence after grant of proper opportunity to the respondent no.1 in accordance with law. It was, further directed that the enquiry should be completed as expeditiously as possible preferably within six months from the date of commencement of the enquiry. Respondent No.1 continued to make grievance about denial of opportunity and on 10th September, 1986 purportedly written statement of defence in reply to the charge sheet was filed. By order dated 12th December, 1986, the respondent no.1 was informed that his reply was found unsatisfactorily and it was decided to hold an enquiry. Subsequently enquiry officer was appointed and a presenting officer was also appointed. However, the enquiry officer appointed originally was replaced because of respondent no.1s allegations of bias.
4. Another writ petition was filed by the respondent No.1 for quashing the proceedings. The High Court directed the appellant to complete the enquiry by 15th May, 1987. It was clearly indicated therein that if there is default in completing the enquiry within the stipulated time, it would be presumed that the Board was not interested to proceed with the matter so far as the respondent no.1 is concerned, and the order of suspension would stand quashed. On an application moved, the time for completion of the proceeding was extended by two months. The enquiry officer concluded the proceeding on 1st June, 1987. He submitted the report on June 8, 1987, with the finding that charges Nos. I, IV, VI, VII, VIII and IX were not established. However, the charges Nos. II, V and X were established while charge No. III was partially established. Second show cause notice was accordingly issued proposing several punishments. A writ petition was filed challenging the enquiry proceeding, enquiry report and the second show cause notice. The only ground taking during the hearing of the writ petition was that the respondent No.1 w
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