Acquittal in a criminal proceeding on identical charge is not a bar to departmental proceedings and punishment.

A dismissed employee of Katwa Municipality has filed the instant writ petition challenging the order of his dismissal from service on the ground that he having been acquitted of charge under Section 409 of Indian Penal Code by the Criminal Court under Section 235(1) of Criminal Procedure Code, the departmental proceeding which was initiated against him on identical charge ought to have been dropped by the disciplinary authority and no punishment should have been awarded upon him. The said dismissed employee was initially appointed as a clerk in the said Municipality. Subsequently he was transferred to the post of a cashier. On 15th June 1992, he prepared two deposit challans; one for depositing a sum of Rs.10,000.00 and another for depositing a sum of Rs.2,981.69P, in the current account of the said Municipality with the State bank of India, Katwa Branch. Two separate bundles of money were created. In one of such bundles a sum of Rs.10,000.00 was kept and in the other bundle a sum of Rs.2,981.69P was kept. The challans and those two bundles of money were kept in a bag and the same was handed over to a peon namely Sri Gopi Krishna Chatterjee for depositing the said money with the bank in the account of the said Municipality. The said peon, without verifying the contents of the said bag, went to deposit the said money to the bank and it was detected in the cash counter of the bank that the bundle containing ten thousand rupees was not available in the bag. The said money could not be recovered and/or traced out subsequently.

Under this circumstances, departmental proceeding was initiated against both the aforesaid employees by the Municipality. On a complaint made by the Municipal Authority, criminal cases were also initiated against both of them on the charge of breach of trust under Section 409 of Indian Penal Code. Both of them were ultimately acquitted in the said criminal proceeding primarily on the following two grounds:-

1. Materials on record were insufficient to prove that the said amount of money was sent to the bank for deposit on the relevant date.

2. There was no whisper in the evidence of the prosecution to suggest that the accused persons misappropriated the said amount.

Thus, it was held that the prosecution has failed to prove the charge under Section 409 of Indian Penal Code against the accused persons beyond all reasonable doubts. Subsequently, a criminal revisional case was filed by the Municipal Authority challenging the order of acquittal of one of such employees who is the petitioner before this court in this writ petition. The said revisional application has already been dismissed on the ground of limitation. Thus, the order of acquittal which was passed by the Learned Additional Session Court at Burdwan in special case no. 1 of 2001 attained its finality. In the departmental proceeding, the petitioner herein was found guilty of major misconduct and as such he was dismissed from service. The departmental proceeding, initiated against the other employee namely the said peon, had to be dropped as the proceeding against him could not be completed during the tenure of his service and thus he was allowed to enjoy the service benefit and the post retiral benefit.

Since the petitioner was dismissed from his service, he filed the instant writ petition challenging the order of his dismissal.

In course of hearing of this writ petition, several decisions were cited at the bar on the proposition of the law that if a delinquent employee is proceeded against both in a criminal proceeding as well as in departmental proceeding on identical charge, the said delinquent employee cannot be punished in the departmental proceeding, if he is honorably acquitted in the criminal proceeding.

Law has now been settled in this regard. Settled position is that both the criminal proceeding and the departmental proceeding involving identical charge therein can be proceeded against the delinquent employee simultaneously and diffe