Delay in disciplinary proceedings causing mental agony and distress to the officer can lead to the dismissal of the petition.

ORDER :

S. Muralidhar, J.

1. The Union of India has filed this writ petition challenging an order dated 11th November, 2010 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi (‘CAT’), allowing O.A. No. 1482/2007. The CAT has by the impugned order quashed the charge-sheet dated 4th August, 1997 as well as a penalty order dated 15th March, 2007 issued against the Respondent, with all consequential benefits.

2. While directing notice to issue in present petition on 28th August, 2011, the impugned order of the CAT was stayed.

3. This is a text book case of delay defeating justice. A government servant has been made to spend the last two decades of his service in defending himself against charges that were vague and unsustainable in law.

4. For the purpose of the present case, it requires to be noted that on 22nd November 1988, the Respondent was appointed as the Deputy Chief Assayer at the Madras Gold Collection-cum-Delivery Centre (‘Centre’) at Madras under the Ministry of Finance. In relation to his functioning in the said post, the Petitioners alleged that several irregularities had been noticed. He was served with a charge-sheet dated 4th August, 1997 containing 6 articles of charge, which could be summarised thus:

(i) Article I: That the Petitioner took away gold buttons weighing about 54 gms and removed approximately 149gms of gold recovered through process of departmental recovery.

(ii) Article II: That the Petitioner did not maintain any register regarding departmental recovery of gold since he took over charge on October 1989 until May 1990.

(iii) Article III: That the Petitioner cheated gold merchants who bought gold lot by delivering at lower percentage and cheated government by delivering gold at higher percent of fine gold contents.

(iv) Article IV: That the Petitioner, on a holiday, opened the Centre and the main vault where the gold was stored singly without any dual control; no register was maintained recording the entry of persons inside the vault; the cash register in the Centre was not properly maintained.

(v) Article V: That the Petitioner accepted the job of preparation of silver medals for Tirumala Tirupati Devastanam (TTD) even though there was lack of infrastructure facility in the Centre; he awarded the job of preparing silver medals to private firm at higher rates; fabricated the documentary evidence to show that while making selection of sub-contracting firm the procedure was followed; transaction with the sub contracting firm was not entered in the records books; payments were made from an unauthorized bank account; vouchers were not rechecked and also tampered with.

(vi) Article VI: That the Petitioner used unparliamentary language in official correspondence; failed to carry out lawful orders of the superior authority.

5. In terms of the charge-sheet, Articles I to V referred to the actions of the Petitioner not being in conformity with the instructions contained in a Government Order (‘GO’) dated 30th January 1991, which according to the Petitioners was issued to ensure that a proper procedure was followed at the Centre.

6. It requires to be straightaway noticed that the period involved as regards each of the above Articles of the charge was a period prior to the date of the above GO dated 30th January, 1991. Article I refers to events of 1990; Article II for the period between October, 1989 and May, 1990; Article III refers to instances of 6th March, 1990 and 24th April, 1990; Article IV of an incident of 14th August, 1990; Article V, again, for events of October, November and December, 1990. In other words, in terms of the charge-sheet the Petitioner is supposed to have committed misconduct by not complying with a GO which was not in force or even issued at the relevant point in time.

7. To complete the narration of facts, the Enquiry Officer (EO) held that Articles I to IV were not proved. He held Article V to be proved and Article VI of the charge-sheet to have been partly-proved. When t