The judgment emphasizes the need for bank officers to act with honesty, integrity, and diligence, and justifies the imposition of the punishment of compulsory retirement based on proven charges of misconduct and irregularities.

1. Mr. K. Chandrasekar, formerly serving as Branch Manager of Chidambaram Indian Bank, having suffered an order of punishment of compulsory retirement from service on 12.10.2009 at the hands of Disciplinary Authority, the Deputy General Manager/ Circle Head, Cuddalore as confirmed by the orders dated 29.06.2009 passed by the third respondent, the General Manager, Indian Bank, Chennai and the order dated 24.05.2011 passed by the second respondent, the Executive Director, the Indian Bank, Chennai, has filed the present Writ Petition No.12098 of 2012, assailing the impugned punishment on various grounds inter-alia that the order of major penalty of compulsory retirement passed under Regulation 4(h) of Indian Bank Officer Employee's (Discipline & Appeal) Regulations, 1976 is not only arbitrary and unreasonable but also disproportionate to the charge and violation of statues and principles of natural justice.

2. Adding further, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that when show cause notice was issued by the third respondent for certain irregularities in home loan accounts sanctioned by the petitioner, the said irregularities being minor, the same were properly explained by the petitioner. But, surprisingly the disciplinary authority without considering the detailed explanations offered by the petitioner wrongly proceeded with the issuance of charge sheet on 20.10.2008, calling for explanation from the petitioner once again. The petitioner after receipt of the charge memo dated 20.10.2008, finding that the charges are minor and trivial, offered satisfactory explanations on 28.10.2008. But, the disciplinary authority wrongly rejected the explanations and ordered for holding enquiry even without furnishing the documents relied on by the respondents for framing the charges. Since the important documents were not made accessible to the petitioner, he was unable to defend the imputation. Though the same was also brought to the notice of the Inquiring Authority, no opportunity was given to the petitioner, which is against the principles of natural

3. The first charge relates to the allegation of imputing failure on the part of the petitioner in respect of the borrower accounts furnished in Annexure-A to the charge memo, stating that without adhering to the rules and norms the petitioner had sanctioned home loans to various borrowers. In the explanation offered for the first charge the petitioner stated that as per the instructions of the head office in the circular dated 30.05.1998 fixing of staff accountability has to be done by taking into account the circumstances under which the decision is made during the relevant period and while sanctioning the above referred loan the petitioner was at a tremendous pressure to promote the structured loan products and it was a matter of common knowledge that every day the circle administration was asking the branches as to how many structured loans were granted and under such a situation the petitioner was concentrating only to achieve the business results, to achieve the corporate objective, due to which certain unintentional dilutions have happened. But, unfortunately the disciplinary authority without assigning any reason wrongly held the charge as proved. Learned counsel further stated that charge 1(a) relates to allegation that the petitioner had not obtained and verified the salary slips issued by the employer for six months and had not verified the statement of accounts of the savings bank. A suitable reply was given in his explanation stating that it is against truth since he has sanctioned 130 housing loan accounts and only 45 have been classified as NPA as on 31st March 2009 and after sale of 19 properties under SARFAESI, only 26 accounts remain under NPA now. The Inquiring Authority also in his findings confirmed that there are only sale of 23 properties and hence only 22 accounts remain under NPA now. Hence, proper explanation was offered, stating that since all the