A departmental enquiry cannot be held on identical charges after the acquittal of the employee in a criminal trial.

H.Mahapatra, J.

1. Plaintiff is the appellant. He brought a suit for the following reliefs:

(1) That the order of dismissal passed by the defendant be set aside and he be reinstated in his job.

(2) That the plaintiff be paid his salary from the date of suspension to the date of the re-instatement.

(3) That the costs of the suit be awarded.

(4) Any other relief or reliefs to which the plaintiff is found entitled.

2. The basis of his suit was that he was in the employment of National Coal Development Corporation as helper of a Joy driver. On account of theft of an electric motor he was an accused in criminal trial in 1958 and was suspended from service from the 7th March, 1960. Criminal case ended in acquittal in his favour on the 29th August, 1960, but subsequent to that, there was a departmental enquiry, in which he was found guilty and was ordered to be dismissed on the 20th November 1960. Several defences were taken to resist his suit. One of them was that the suit was not maintainable. The findings of the courts below have been against the plaintiff to the effect that he was not a permanent employee and not a civil servant The departmental enquiry was justified and was not illegal and he had been given opportunities to defend himself in that enquiry. Ultimately, the suit had to be dismissed and that decree has been upheld by the first court of appeal. Hence the present appeal by the plaintiff

3. Learned counsel raises mainly two contentions in support of the appeal He urged that after acquittal by a competent criminal court of the plaintiff of the charge of theft under Sec.379 and also of the offence under Sec. 411 of the Indian Penal Code, it was not open to the department to hold, subsequent to that acquittal, the departmental enquiry on identical charges and record a finding against him and dismiss him thereupon. The charge sheet in the departmental enquiry is exhibit A. There is no doubt that the charges that were framed against the plaintiff in the departmental enquiry were the same as was the Subject matter of the criminal trial against him, where he was acquitted. In support of this contention learned counsel relied upon a case reported in AIR 1965 Mad 502 Shaik Kasim V/s. Supdt. of Post Offices, Chingleput Dn. That decision was based- upon another earlier case of the Madras High Court reported in AIR 1952 Mad 853: 1952-1 Mad LJ 35, Jerome DSilva V/s. Regional Transport Authority South Canara. In the latter case it was laid down that a quasijudicial Tribunal like the Regional Transport Authority or the Appellate Tribunal therefrom cannot ignore the findings and orders of competent Criminal courts in respect of an offence when the Tribunal proceeds to take any action on the basis of the commission of that offence. As primarily the criminal courts of the land are entrusted with the enquiry into offence, it is desirable that the findings and orders of the criminal courts should be treated as conclusive in proceeding? before quasi-judicial Tribunal? like Transport Authorities under the Motor Vehicles Act. If there is a conviction by a competent criminal court, that would furnish conclusive ground for any penal action by the Transport Authorities. Equally if the criminal prosecution ended in a discharge or acquittal of the accused and that evpnt happened before the order of the Road Transport Tribunal, then such Tribunal would not have the power to go behind the final order of a competent criminal court.

4. The above dictum can hardly be doubted on principle. In answer to this contention learned counsel appearing for the defendant urged that the judgment of the criminal trial was not admissible in evidence and the findings of that court will not be evidence in the trial before the civil court in the suit. It is true that the findings of the criminal court will not be binding in a civil trial, but here the question is different: whether that finding will be Mnding on the department for the purpose of instituting a