IMPORTANT POINTS
Essential principles of judicial review are proportionality of punishment and logical reasoning emanating from legal findings.
Appellant’s total absence of 15 days on 4 occasions in two months, primarily to sort out the problem of his daughter with her in-laws does not make it a case of habitual absenteeism.

Judgment :-

H.L. Dattu, J.

Delay condoned. Leave granted.

2) This is an appeal by special leave against the judgment and order of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana in Civil Writ Petition No.1993 of 2006 dated 28.08.2007, wherein and whereunder, the High Court has dismissed the writ petition by affirming the order passed by the disciplinary authority of the respondent college.

3) The facts in brief are as under:-

The appellant was working as a Sweeper in the Respondent-Punjab Engineering College. He remained absent unauthorizedly for the period from 11.02.2004 to 13.02.2004, 17.02.2004 to 20.02.2004, 05.03.2004 to 09.03.2004 and 23.03.2004 to 26.03.2004. The departmental enquiry was initiated by the disciplinary authority of the college by issuing a charge memo containing the allegation of unauthorized absence and an inquiry officer was appointed to enquire into the charges alleged. In reply to the charge memo and also before the inquiry officer, the plea of the workman was that in order to save matrimonial life of his daughter due to indifferent attitude of her in-laws, he had no other go but to absent himself on different dates during the month of February and March, 2004 and further he could not take prior permission from the employer due to mental agony, anguish, and the anxiety that he was undergoing during the relevant time.

4) The inquiry officer after holding the enquiry has submitted his enquiry report wherein, he has opined, that, the workman is guilty of the charges alleged in the charge memo. The disciplinary authority of the respondent-college, after receipt of the report of the inquiry officer has accepted the report and has passed an order dated 30.09.2004, imposing a major penalty of dismissal from service.

5) The appellant had called in question the correctness or otherwise of the order passed by disciplinary authority of the respondent-college by filing civil writ petition before the High Court. The Court by its order dated 28.08.2007 has dismissed the writ petition.

6) At the time of hearing of the appeal, the only contention canvassed before us by the learned counsel for the appellant was that, the punishment imposed by the disciplinary authority is disproportionate to the gravity of the charges alleged against the appellant, especially, in view of the explanation offered by the appellant for his unauthorized absence for a few days in the month of February and March 2004 and lesser punishment would meet the ends of justice.

7) Per contra, learned counsel for the respondent, submitted, that, unauthorized absence is a serious misconduct and the said charge being proved against the employee, the disciplinary authority was justified in imposing a major penalty of dismissal from service.

8) The Courts and the Tribunals can interfere with the decision of the disciplinary authority, only when they are satisfied that the punishment imposed by the disciplinary authority is shockingly disproportionate to the gravity of the charges alleged and proved against a delinquent employee and not otherwise. Reference can be made to the decision of this Court in the case of V. Ramana Vs. A.P.S.R.T.C. and Ors. (2005) 7 SCC 338, wherein it is stated:

"The common thread running through in all these decisions is that the court should not interfere with the administrators decision unless it was illogical or suffers from procedural impropriety or was shocking to the conscience of the Court, in the sense that it was in defiance of logic or moral standards. In view of what has been stated in Wednesbury case the court would not go into the correctness of the choice made by the administrator open to him and the court should not substitute its decision for that of the administrator. The scope of judicial review is limited to the deficiency in decision-making process and not the decision.

To put it differently unless the punishment imposed by the disciplinary authority or the Appellate Authority shocks the conscience of the court/Tr