The importance of fair procedure and due opportunity in disciplinary proceedings, and the court's authority to reinstate an appropriate punishment.

JUDGMENT :

Sanjib Banerjee, J.

Prayer: Appeal filed under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent against the order dated 03.09.2012 passed in W.P.No.20857 of 2004.

1. The appeal is directed against a rather disturbing order by which an apparently corrupt bank official has been exonerated without so much as the primary charges proved against him being discussed in course of the adjudication before the Writ Court.

2. Indeed, so gross were the charges and so conclusively were they proved against the writ petitioner in the domestic forum that the primary charges have been skirted in course of the appeal while referring to the lesser, on-the-fringe charges.

3. The judgment and order impugned is of September 3, 2012 and it covers pages 150 to 189 of the appeal papers. After the initial few introductory paragraphs, all the charges are quoted till page 153 before the contentions raised on behalf of the writ petitioner and the judgments cited on his behalf are noticed with copious extracts therefrom. At page 161 of the appeal papers, begins paragraph 22 of the judgment which appears to record the first charge and the explanation of the writ petitioner to such charge and it is followed up with the remainder of the charges and explanations almost in seriatim. Charge No.2 does not appear to have been covered in course of paragraph 22 of the judgment that spans page 161 to the middle of page 170 of the appeal papers. The explanations furnished by the delinquent were duly reproduced.

4. At paragraph 23 of the judgment, the stand of the employer is quoted from the counter-affidavit going up to page 179. Paragraph 25 at page 179 extracts expansively from a judgment cited on behalf of the employer. The employer’s submission is found in the next several paragraphs, with the majority of the pages between 181 and 186 being filled with quotations from the reported judgments cited.

5. The adjudication of the matter is evident from paragraphs 32 to 41 spread over pages 186 to 188 with a substantial part of pages 186 and 187 taken up by a further quotation from a judgment cited on behalf of the writ petitioner which was already quoted at page 157 of the appeal papers under paragraph 10 of the judgment. It is necessary that the basis for upsetting the findings of the inquiry officer as upheld by the disciplinary authority and affirmed by the appellate authority in exercise of the limited scope of judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution of India be seen in its entirety:

“32. On consideration, this Court finds that this writ petition deserves to succeed. According to the Corporation Bank Officers Employees' (Discipline and Appeal) Regulations, 1982, the General Manager is the reviewing authority, therefore, the petitioner was certainly prejudiced in his right to avail the remedy of appeal, therefore, the impugned order is violative of principles of natural justice. In view of the law laid down in the in the case of Surjit Ghosh vs. Chairman & Managing Director, United Commercial Bank and others (1995) 2 SCC 474) holding therein that if an order is passed by the authority which resulted in denial of right of appeal, then the impugned order cannot be sustained.

33. The judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Chairman, A.P.State Electricity Board and others vs. M.Kurmi Naidu (supra) on which reliance is placed by the respondent will have no application to the facts of the present case, as in the said case irrespective of the authority who passed the order, an appeal remedy was available before the appellate authority.

34. In the case of Electronics Corporation of India vs. G.Muralidhar (2001) 10 SCC 43) the Hon'ble Supreme Court was pleased to hold that power to impose punishment cannot be exercised by appellate authority if it results in denial of right to appeal, the termination by appellate authority was held to be bad. Furthermore, the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Surjit Ghosh vs. Chairman and Managing Director, United Commercial Bank and others [(1995) 2 SC