IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that failure to provide essential documents in disciplinary proceedings violates natural justice, necessitating a review of the imposed punishment.

JUDGMENT :

In a Disciplinary Enquiry involving inter alia the charge of reckless lending of the Bank funds to the unscrupulous borrowers and of negligently compromising securities for the repayment, the Appellant a Bank Officer was awarded punishment of dismissal from service. His Departmental Appeal against the same having failed, he moved the Writ Court in W.P.No.25440/2009 (S-DE) which came to be dismissed by a learned Judge of this Court vide order dated 24.03.2015. This Appeal is directed against the said order.

2. Learned counsel for the Appellant vehemently argues that: relevant copies of documents, including a copy of the Investigation Report were not furnished to the Appellant despite demand and that has disabled him from taking up effective defence; the Respondent-Bank could not have claimed privilege for denying the documents; Both the Disciplinary Authority and the Appellate Authority failed to see that there was no evidentiary material enough to hold the charges proved; there is a specific finding in the Enquiry Report that almost entire amount of loan has been recovered and the loan accounts have been closed; while awarding punishment, relevant factors such as, spotless long service, earning of promotion & encomia have not been considered and the extreme punishment of dismissal shocks the conscience of any reasonable person. Lastly, he seeks to falter the impugned order of the learned Single Judge on the ground that after hearing on 13.08.2013, he had reserved the matter and pronounced the judgement only 24.03.2015.

3. Learned Panel Counsel appearing for the Respondents makes submission with equal vehemence resisting the Appeal, supporting the reasoning of the learned Single Judge. He contends that the scope of intra- Court Appeal is very limited; findings of guilt recorded by the Disciplinary Authority and accepted by the Appellate Authority cannot be examined by the Writ Court; if there is substantial compliance with the principles of natural justice, no grievance can be made by pointing out some defects. Lastly, what punishment should be awarded to the delinquent employee pertains to the domain of employer and therefore, Courts cannot substitute the punishment awarded by the competent authority, with its own views. So contending he seeks dismissal of the Appeal. He banks upon certain Rulings:

i) Vijay Kumar Nigam v. State of MP and others(1996) 11 SCC 599

ii) Syndicate Bank and others v. Venkatesh Gururao Kurati. (2006) 3 SCC 150

iii) Avinash Sharad Daganokar v. Bank of India Mumbai and another 2017(1) Mh.L.J. 387

iv) State Bank of India and others v. Bidyut Kumar Mitra and others (2011)2 SCC 316

v) Sunil Kumar Banerjee v. State of West Bengal (1980) 3 SCC 304

vi) Union of India and others v. P Gunasekaran (2015) 2 SCC 610

vii) Union of India and others v. Subrata Nath 2022 SCC Online SC 1617

viii) Pravin Kumar v. Union of India (2020) 9 SCC 471

ix) State of Bihar and others v. Phulpari Kumari (2020) 2 SCC 130

x) State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur v. Nemi Chand Nalwaya (2011) 4 SCC 584

4. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties and halving perused the voluminous Appeal papers, we are inclined to grant a limited indulgence as under and for the following reasons:

a) The disciplinary proceedings were initiated way back in the year 2007 and the delinquent employee came to be dismissed from service vide order dated 07.11.2008. His Appeal against the same was negatived at the Departmental level on 31.03.2009. Now we are in 2024 and undeniably the Appellant employee otherwise would have demitted office on attaining the age of superannuation. That being the position, the question of setting aside termination from service for facilitating his reinstatement even remotely would not arise. True it is that that the learned Single Judge had heard the matter on 13.08.2013 and pronounced the judgement only on 24.03.2015. It has been the settled position of law vide ANIL RAI vs. STATE OF BIHAR (2001) 7 SCC 318, that no judgment can r