The judgment establishes the principle that disciplinary and criminal proceedings are independent and require different standards of proof, emphasizing that the exoneration in disciplinary proceedings does not preclude criminal prosecution if the exoneration is on technical grounds and not on merit.

JUDGMENT :

Shampa Dutt (Paul), J.

1. The present revision has been preferred praying for quashing of a proceeding being Special Case No. 01 of 2019 pending before the Learned Special Judge, 4th Special Court, Calcutta arising out of Hare Street Police Station Case No. 139 dated 30.04.2019 under Sections 409/420/467/471/477A of the Indian Penal Code read with 66D/71 of I T Act and Sections 7, 13(1)(a)(b) and 13(2) of the P C Act.

2. The petitioner’s case is that he was an employee under Kolkata Port Trust appointed in the year 1980 as a Lower Division Clerk (LDC) after completing all formalities including the written test conducted by the authority of Kolkata Port Trust and worked there very sincerely, honestly with the satisfaction of the authority. But surprisingly the Kolkata Port Trust initiated a Departmental proceeding against the petitioner vide Memorandum No. FA/M/137 dated 23.11.1984 and in the said proceeding the petitioner was found guilty and was proposed to impose penalty of removal from service and to that effect under the Statute the competent authority of Kolkata Port Trust issued show cause with a direction to the petitioner to submit against the award.

3. After receiving such show cause, the petitioner duly submitted the written statements against the said award to the then Deputy Chairman, Kolkata Port Trust and after going through the records of the proceeding, service records of the petitioner and the relevant documents, the then Deputy Chairman, Kolkata Port Trust reviewed the award for removal from service and passed an award of minor penalty instead of removal from service by withholding of grade increment of two years without cumulative effective vide No. CVO/38/F/Con/1 dated 27.04.1988. After the award passed by the then Deputy Chairman, Kolkata Port Trust, the petitioner had been working there and subsequently the petitioner was designated as Accounts Officer, Finance Department under Kolkata Port Trust.

4. Surprisingly after completion of 30 years of service another Departmental proceeding was initiated by the authority of Kolkata Port Trust and ultimately charge was framed against the petitioner vide Charge Sheet Memorandum No. Vig/PE/01/2018/994 dated 25.07.2018 with allegations that the petitioner entered fictitious amounts of Rs. 1,09,792/- in his account by using the payroll module of the computer system and unauthorisedly and deceitfully misused user IDs’ and passwords of his sub ordinates and entered in the computer system in his favour of Rs. 42,450/- and admittedly the amounts as alleged was duly recovered from his salary by the Kolkata Port Trust.

5. After concluding the aforesaid Departmental Proceeding, the charges leveled against the petitioner were established and final order was passed by the Deputy Chairman and Disciplinary Authority by awarding major punishment by reducing four stages lower of scale of pay till the retirement from service and the petitioner was also debarred from getting increments till his superannuation and the pension would be fixed according to the reduced pay and surprisingly the order of suspension was not revoked or withdrawn by the authority of Kolkata Port Trust till the date of his retirement.

6. After passing the aforesaid final order, the authority of Kolkata Port Trust neither revoked the suspension order nor allowed the petitioner to join his duties and surprisingly issued another alleged Memorandum vide No. Admin/7806/Con & FA & CAO/16 dated 14.06.2019 which was received by the petitioner on 20.06.2019. It was alleged in the aforesaid Memorandum that the petitioner has willfully impersonated the name of his father to secure employment as died-in-harness candidate and thereby committed gross misconduct. It is pertinent to mention here that the allegation leveled against the petitioner in the Memorandum dated 14.06.2019, had already been decided finally and the order was reviewed by the then competent authority and award was passed vide No. CVO/38/F/Con/1 dated