O R D E R

(Order of this Court delivered by S.M.SUBRAMANIAM,J.)

The penalty of dismissal from service imposed in G.O.(2D).No.172 Home (Courts-I) Department 03.04.2023 is sought to be quashed in the present writ proceedings before us.

2. Before adverting to the facts, we would like to consider the governing principles in the matter of disciplinary proceedings. The power of Judicial Review of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is to ensure the processes through which a decision has been taken by the Competent Authority in consonance with the Statutes and Rules in force, but not the decision itself.

3. In exercise of Judicial Review, the Court does not act as an Appellate Forum over the findings of the Disciplinary Authority. The Court does not re-appreciate the evidence on the basis of which the finding of misconduct has been arrived at in the course of the disciplinary enquiry. 4. The Court in exercise of Judicial Review must restrict its review to determine whether:

(i) the rules of natural justice have been complied with;

(ii) the finding of misconduct is based on some evidence;

(iii) the Statutory Rules governing the conduct of the disciplinary enquiry have been observed;

(iv) the findings of the Disciplinary Authority suffer from perversity;

(v) the penalty is disproportionate to the proven misconduct.

In the context of the above principles, the nature of departmental domestic enquiry cannot be compared with the criminal trial.

5. The procedures to be adopted for departmental disciplinary proceedings and the criminal trial are distinct and different. Strict proof is required to convict a person under the criminal law. However, no such strict proof is required to punish an employee under the Discipline and Appeal Rules. Preponderance of probabilities would be sufficient to punish an employee. Even moral turpitude and certain misconducts are prescribed as misconducts under the conduct Rules. Therefore, the Courts have time and again reiterated the power of Judicial Review of the High Court in disciplinary matters are expected to be confined with reference to the principles stated above. A public servant is expected to behave properly both inside the Office and outside. His conduct at all circumstances must be in the expected standard, since the public servants enjoys status in the society. By virtue of their status, people repose confidence in public administration. More importantly, in Judicial services, the conduct of the Judges are expected to be far above the conduct of other Government Servants. Particularly, the Uniformed Personnels and the persons in the Judicial Services are expected to behave properly and maintain good conduct at all circumstances.

6. With this background, we commence the facts:

The writ petitioner was appointed as Civil Judge (Junior Division) in Tamil Nadu State Judicial Service on 11.10.2012. He was transferred to various places and posted as Judicial Magistrate-VI at Coimbatore. A Charge Memorandum was issued under Rule 17(b) of the Tamil Nadu Civil Services Discipline and Appeal Rules. Five charges were framed against the writ petitioner as under:

Charge No.1:

That you, Tr.R.Rajavelu, while serving as Judicial Magistrate-VI, Coimbatore, during the period from 18.09.2015 to 30.04.2018, had wantonly adjourned the cases in which ...., appeared as an Advocate before your court, to the evening session and took up those cases for hearing in your Chamber with malafide intention of being closed with her. Further, you had obtained her mobile phone number in the guise of discussing about the case details and started contacting her over phone frequently and spoke indecently to her with sexually coloured remarks like, wants to see her constantly and speak to her, fallen in love with her, she looks beautiful etc. and you had even invited her to have tea with you, with malafide intention and threatened her not to reveal your indifferent attitude to anyone. You have continuously repeated your obsc