The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has imposed a cost of Rs 25,000 on the State of Uttar Pradesh after a senior officer acts as enquiry officer, disciplinary authority & appellate authority in same case.
A Single Bench of Justice Alok Mathur passed this order while hearing a petition filed by Wasi Ahmad.
A challenge has been made to the appellate order dated 14.12.2022 passed by the opposite party no 2- Ajay Kumar Shukla in his capacity as Secretary Election Anubhag, Lucknow Uttar Pradesh rejecting the appeal of the petitioner.
It has been contended by counsel for the petitioner that while serving on the post of Senior Assistant in the Office of District Relation Officer/District Magistrate, Amethi departmental proceedings were initiated against the petitioner and he was placed under suspension on 01.09.2017. The Sub Divisional Officer, Gauriganj, District Amethi was appointed as Enquiry Officer.
The said Enquiry Officer was, in the meanwhile, transferred and on 11.6.2018, the Deputy District Election Officer, Gauriganj was appointed as the Enquiry Officer. The Deputy District Election Officer, Gauriganj also could not conclude the enquiry proceedings and he was replaced by the then Sub Divisional Officer, Gauriganj. A charge sheet was submitted on 29.6.2018 and the same was handed over to the petitioner on 24.7.2018.
According to the petitioner, the charge-sheet did not contain any documents as mentioned therein and, accordingly, he had requested the respondents to supply all the documents, which were necessary in support of the charges levelled in the charge sheet.
The petitioner had replied to the charge sheet on 13.3.2020 denying the allegations levelled against him and the Enquiry Officer concluded enquiry on 1.12.2020 and submitted it to the Chief Election Officer, Lucknow.
The petitioner was given a show cause notice containing a copy of the enquiry report on 5.1.2021. In his reply, the petitioner has stated that entire enquiry proceedings were conducted under the provisions of the U.P Government Servants (Discipline & Appeal) Rules, 1999, inasmuch as provisions of Rule 7 were also not followed.
The disciplinary authority rejected the reply of the petitioner and passed an order for reduction in rank to the lowest pay of his original post of Junior Assistant and imposed recovery of Rs 6,59,487/- from his salary as penalty. Apart from the above, the difference in the salary was also forfeited pertaining to the period, the petitioner was kept under suspension during the disciplinary proceedings.
Being aggrieved by the order of punishment dated 24.6.2022, the petitioner preferred an appeal on 15.9.2022 under Rule 11 of the Rule 1999. In his appeal, he had submitted that enquiry was conducted in gross violation of provisions contained in Rule 7 and in contravention of the Government Orders dated 19.7.2022 and 16.8.2022 and the petitioner was illegally continued under suspension for five years and only 50% of the salary was paid to him during the said proceedings. The petitioner being aggrieved by the order of the punishment, had preferred an appeal, which has been rejected by means of the order dated 14.12.2022.
Counsel for the petitioner submitted that all canons of principles of natural justice have been violated in the conduct of enquiry against the petitioner apart from the fact that the respondents have acted malafide in keeping the enquiry proceedings pending for five years and the person, who had issued the charge sheet is the same persons, who proceeded to impose the punishment and rejected the appeal against the order of punishment.
He further submitted that the respondents have totally ignored the provisions of principles of bias where it is clearly stated that a person cannot be a judge of his own cause and the said provisions has been adequately detailed by the Supreme Court in the case of A.K Kraipak and others Vs Union of India. In view of above, he has submitted that entire disciplinary proceedings are vitiated and, accordingly, are liable to be set aside.
The Court is of the view that entire disciplinary proceedings as well as the appeal has been decided contrary to the settled canons of settled principles of natural justice and was clearly hit by the principles of bias and entire disciplinary proceedings against the petitioner stands vitiated and are, accordingly, quashed by the High Court.
The Court said that,
Needles to say, it will be open for the respondents to conduct a fresh enquiry in accordance with law but considering the fact that a Senior Officer of the State Government had proceeded to act in such an illegal and arbitrary manner where he had himself issued a charge sheet as well as the punishment order and apart from the above proceeded to decide the appeal again his own order has acted contrary to the canons of principle of natural justice and the conduct of such Senior Officer of the State Government is deprecated, as he is required to be well versed in the basic legal provisions pertaining to adherence to the principles of natural justice.
In all the three stages the requirement of law is that the Inquiry Officer has to be a different person then the Disciplinary Authority and Appellate Authority has to be superior authority who looks into the correctness of the order passed by the Disciplinary Authority.
It is well known that the errors if any in the inquiry are to be looked into by the Disciplinary Authority and the errors if any in the disciplinary proceedings are to be looked into by the Appellate Authority.
To give a fair hearing under reasonable opportunity, each of the three authorities have to be different individuals inasmuch as, no person can be adjudged in his own cause.
Ajay Kumar Shukla, have acted himself in all the three capacities in the case as lead to miscarriage of justice and accordingly the entire disciplinary proceedings stand vitiated. The entire exercise will have to be carried out afresh in accordance with law.
Needless to say that such miscarriage of justice results in huge loss to the State exchequer where huge time and energy will be spent by the senior officials in conduct of the said inquiry proceedings. Therefore, we expect that the persons conducting disciplinary proceedings are supposed to be well versed with the relevant rules and law applicable and only thereafter they should be permitted to conduct disciplinary proceedings, the court further said.
“With the aforesaid directions, the writ petition is allowed with the cost of Rs 25,000/- to be paid by the State Government.
It is also directed that the enquiry may be concluded against the petitioner within a period of three months from the date a certified copy of the order is produced before the competent authority”, the order reads.