Allegations of bias against an Inquiry Officer do not justify the suspension of inquiry proceedings if the process is grounded in sufficient procedural rationale.

JUDGMENT

[Physical Hearing]

Rajiv Shakdher, J. (Oral)--This appeal is directed against the judgement dated 15.02.2021, passed by the learned single judge in W.P.(C.) 7948/2018.

2. Respondent no. 1 is the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) while respondent nos. 3 and 4 are the Regional Directors of the regional centres of IGNOU located at Vikas Bhawan, Fourth floor, North Block, Salt lake City, Kolkata, and Raghunathganj, Phooltala, Bagan Bari, Murshidabad, respectively.

2.1. To be noted, respondent no. 3 is the Enquiry Officer i.e., Mr. G.P. Bhatia.

2.2. Mr. Dibyadyuti Banerjee, who appears for the appellant, says that, an advance copy of the appeal has been served on the respondents. However, there is no representation on behalf of the respondents.

3. Mr. Banerjee says that, the appellant's only concern is that, no decision has been taken by the disciplinary authority, with regard to the representation(s)¹ made by the appellant, as regards the bias injected into the proceedings by the Enquiry Officer.

3.1. It is Mr. Banerjee's contention that, since representation(s), to that effect, had been made, the enquiry proceedings should have been stayed, in terms of Cabinet Secretariat's Office Memorandum, dated 09.11.1972. In this behalf, Mr. Banerjee has drawn our attention to paragraphs 3, 15 and 16 of the impugned judgement, where this contention has been noticed and dealt with, by the learned single judge. The relevant parts of the impugned judgement are extracted hereafter:

"15. No doubt, the instructions of the Cabinet Secretariat of the year 1972 relied upon by Mr. Mohanty do suggest when a representation is made against the Inquiry Officer alleging bias he should stay the proceedings. But I find, the Inquiry Officer has dealt with the issue in his order dated March 08, 2018, in the following manner:

"4. Regarding stay of inquiry, the IA has made it abundantly clear that the inquiry will continue till any stay order is received from the Competent Court or any directions is received from the Disciplinary Authority. It is further made clear that in CCS (CCA) Rules 1965, there is no statutory provision to stay the inquiry, if a representation of bias is alleged against the IA. These are only executive instructions which do not have the force of law These are not mandatory but directory in nature. It is further retreated no prejudice has been caused to the CO by not staying the proceedings, This entire inquiry is based on documentary evidences and not on oral evidences. The law on this point is settled that in proceedings which are based on documentary evidences, the charges can be proved straight away also.

5. There are also executive instructions issued by the CVC vide circular no 0210/12016 (F.No.OOOVGL-18) dated 18.01.2016 to complete the Disciplinary Proceedings within 06 months from the date of appointment of PO and IO. The executive instructions referred by CO in D-7 dated 07.03.2018 were issued on 09.11.1972 while as the CVC instructions were issued on 18.01.2016 which are the latest instructions and will prevail over the executive instructions issued on 09.11.1972.

6. In DOS-II, IA has categorically referred to the gist of all DOS and brought on record that there is not even a single instance of bias alleged by the CO. By simply alleging bias, the inquiry cannot be stayed, till any directions to the contrary have been received. The CO should have demanded expeditious disposal of the disciplinary proceedings, on the contrary, CO has tried his level best to delay the inquiry on one pretext or the other. The proceedings recorded in DOS-11 may please be read along with this DOS."

16. The above, shows some justification for the Inquiry Officer not to stay the proceedings.