The main legal point established is the limited scope of judicial review in technical matters and the standard of proof required in a departmental proceeding.

WP (C) No. 266 of 2011

1. In this writ petition, the petitioner is questioning the legality of the departmental enquiry against him and the resultant penalty imposed upon him.

2. The facts giving rise to the writ petition, as pleaded by the petitioner, may be briefly noticed. While the petitioner was posted in the Office of the Superintending Engineer, Ambassa as T.A. to Superintending Engineer, a departmental enquiry (“DE” for short) was held against him and two other Junior Engineers, namely, Shri Sudip Sinha and Shri Siddharta Sengupta by the Office memorandum dated 29-6-2006 on the common allegation of negligence in supervising the work of constructing an overhead water tank at Kulai in the year 2002. The DE was based on the report dated 12-5-2005 of the Expert Committee consisting of four members, namely, Er. RK Mazumdar (Chairman), (2) Er. BK Deb Barma (Member Secretary), (3) Er. T.K. Debnath (Member) and (4) Er. MK Bhowmik (Member). According to the petitioner, the enquiry was conducted behind his back and without issuing show cause notice to him nor was the report placed before him or his colleagues. He, however, managed to obtain the copy subsequently from a different source unofficially. It is contended by the petitioner that the charge sheet would show that the prosecution cited some documents and eight witnesses to substantiate the charges against him, but all cited documents could not produced or properly exhibited thereby stripping off of their evidentiary value. The Expert Committee spoke of the videograph taken at the time of the investigation made by them, but the same was never exhibited nor was anyone producing the video subjected to cross-examination. According to the petitioner, vital witnesses for the prosecution such as BK Deb Barma and Shri R.K. Mazumdar, Members of the said Committee avoided the witness box for cross- examination in spite of repeated summons. Notwithstanding such deficiencies in the case of the Department as also lack of evidence, the Enquiry Committee found the petitioner and his colleagues guilty of the charge. The disciplinary authority without proper application of mind accepted the findings of the Enquiry Committee and imposed the penalty of reduction of his pay to three stages below with cumulative effect and recovery of Rs. 2,85,115/- which is alleged to be the loss suffered by the Department. The petitioner thereafter preferred a statutory appeal, but the appellate authority disposed of the appeal mechanically by the order dated 24-5-2011 without applying its mind to the grounds stated in the memo of appeal. Aggrieved by this, this writ petition has been filed for appropriate reliefs.

3. The State-respondents resisted the writ petition and filed their affidavit-in-opposition. It is the case of the answering respondents that on receipt of a complaint from PWD, proceedings were initiated against the petitioner and two other Junior Engineers, namely, Shri Sudip Sinha [the petitioner in WP (C) No. 488/11] vide the order dated 29-6-2006 and Memo dated 27-6-2006 for failure to supervise the construction of 40,000 galons capacity of reinforced cement concrete (RCC) overhead reservoir of 15.30 metres staging height taken up under the scheme of Accelerated Rural Water Supply Scheme at Kulai, Ambassa. A Technical Expert Committee comprising of four members was constituted by the PWD for investigating the causes of defects of the said overhead water tank. The report was accordingly submitted to the PWD. There is no provision to show cause for holding preliminary enquiry for negligence or failure to supervise entrusted duty. The disciplinary proceeding was conducted as per the available records, whereas the degree of proof required in a DP is “preponderance of probability” and not proof beyond reasonable doubt. Videography CD was prepared at the time of visit by the Technical Committee and was supplied to the petitioner. All important documents were handed over to the peti