High Court
Case Details
WP(C) 1225/2005 BEFORE THE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE B.K. SHARMA
Legal Reasoning
The petitioner, who has been dismissed from service pursuant to a departmental e nquiry, has filed this writ petition challenging the order of dismissal, confirm ed on appeal and revision. He was dismissed from service by the Annexure -4 orde r dated 23.12.2001 and by now more than 11 years have gone by. The petitioner wh ile was serving as Ct/GD under the respondents was served with the Memorandum of charge sheet dated 16.1.2991 levelling the following charges :- (cid:28)ARTICLE-I That, the said No. 941151564 CT/GD Chandresh Singh of C/27 Coy, CRPF, while func tioning as CT/GD during the period Dec’2000, committed an act of misconduct / ne glect of duty in his capacity as a member of the Force under section 11(1) of C RPF Act’1949 in that, he had left the campus /lines of C/27 Coy CRPF on 21.12.20 00 at 1800 hrs without permission of his competent authority, which is pre-judic ial to good order and discipline of the Force. That, the said No. 941151564 CT/GD Chandresh Singh of C/27 Coy, CRPF, while func tioning as CT/GD during the period Dec’2000, committed and act of misconduct /ne glect of duty in his capacity as a member of the force under section 11(1) of CR PF Act’1949 in that, he had left the campus / lines of C/27 Coy, CRPF on 21.12.2 000 at 1800 hrs and consumed liquor in the Market and misbehaved with owner of W ine shop and Police Officer in Police station, Nazira and used unparliamentary l anguage against them, which is pre-judicial to good order and discipline of the Force. (cid:29) Along with the charge, the statement of imputation of misconduct and the lists of documents and witnesses had also been furnished. Being not satisfied with the reply furnished by the petitioner, the disc iplinary authority conducted an enquiry by appointing an Inquiry Officer but n c onclusion of enquiry submitted his report holding the petitioner guilty of both the charges. Thereafter, the disciplinary authority passed the impugned order da ted 23.12.2001 (Annexure-4) dismissing the petitioner from service. In the said order, detailed discussions have been made in respect of the charges, the defenc e of the petitioner and the evidence on record. In the order, it has been record ed that due to the misconduct on the part of the petitioner, the reputation of t he disciplined force has been lowered in the eyes of general public at-large. Th ereafter, deriving satisfaction for awarding the penalty of dismissal from servi ce, the discipline authority exercising his power and jurisdiction, dismissed th e petitioner from service. After such order of dismissal, the petitioner preferred an appeal before the appellate authority which was also dismissed by Annexure-7 order dated Nil of June, 2002. Thereafter, the petitioner preferred a revision petition under Ru le 29 of the CRPF Rules, 1955 which was also rejected as has been disclosed in t he counter affidavit filed by the respondents.
Legal Reasoning
I have heard Mr. S. Sarma, learned counsel for the petitioner as well as Mr. N. Bora, learned CGC. Mr. Sarma, learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the enquiry was not conducted in a fair manner and the petitioner was depr ived of reasonable opportunity of being heard. He submits that the complaint on the basis of which the enquiry was conducted being not supplied to the petitione r translating the same to Hindi, there was prejudice to the defence of the petit ioner. He also submits that the penalty is disproportionate to the gravity of th e offence. According to him, a lesser penalty would have met the ends of justice . Countering the above argument, Mr. N. Bora, learned CGC submitted that t he petitioner being a member of the disciplined force ought to have maintained t he discipline instead of leaving the unit without any permission and then to con sume liquor and pick up quarrel with the wine shop owner which considerably dama ge the image of the disciplined force. I have considered the submissions made by the learned counsel for the pa rties and also perused the entire materials on record. On a total reading of the materials on record including the evidence, I do not find any infirmity in the procedure adopted towards conducting the depart mental enquiry. Although, it is the stand of the petitioner that the copy of the complaint was not furnished to him but it is found that the complaint which was in Assamese was provided to him. If the petitioner wanted to get it translated to Hindi, he could have very well done so instead of making a grievance that the complaint being in Assamese, he could not understand the same. Above aspect of the matter need not detain us, inasmuch as, it is an admitted po sition that the petitioner while on duty left the campus /line on 21.12.2000 at 1800 hrs. without permission of his competent authority, which according to the charge No.1 was pre-judicial of the good order and discipline of the Force. Not only that while going out of the campus / lines without permission of the compet ent authority, he consumed liquor in the market and misbehaved with the owner of the wine shop and Police Officer in the Police Station, Nazira. He also used un -parliamentary language against them, which was considered pre-judicial to the g ood order and discipline of the Force. Mr. Sarma, learned counsel for the petitioner, drawing my attention to t he statements made by the witnesses, has submitted that on a total reading of th e said evidence, it is not discernible that the petitioner had misbehaved with t he wine shop owner and police in any manner. On the other hand, Mr. N. Bora, lea rned CGC submits that when it is an admitted position that the petitioner went o ut of the campus /line without the permission of the competent authority, that b y itself was sufficient to constitute misconduct on the part of the petitioner. He further submits that on a reading of the evidence on record, it is apparent t hat the petitioner consumed liquor and was in a uncontrollable state. PW-6 is the Assistant Sub-Inspector, who in his deposition categorically stated that the petitioner was under influence of liquor. He had to be arrested because of the complaint lodged by the wine shop owner with whom the petitioner had misbehaved. As stated by the said witness, the owner had come to the Police Station and lodged the complaint against the petitioner because of his misbehav iour. PW-7 is the Doctor who had examined the petitioner, who in his deposition stated about the medical examination of the petitioner and as to how he found hi m to be under influence of liquor. The said Doctor was cross examined and in his cross examination, replying to the Question No. 45, he categorically stated tha t the behaviour of the petitioner was not normal. Like wise, other witnesses als o stated about consumption of liquor by the petitioner. The aforesaid fact leading to the charges being an admitted position and in abse nce of any prejudice shown to the petitioner, this Court exercising the power of judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution of India cannot sit on ap peal over the findings arrived at in the enquiry proceeding. As regards the subm ission that the penalty is disproportionate to the gravity of offence, the respo ndents in their counter affidavit have stated that the petitioner was found arro gant and disobedience on earlier occasions also, for which he was warned verball y on several occasions. However, there was no improvement. The petitioner being a member of the disciplined force, it was incumbent on his part to follow the discipline. Because of his indiscipline, the disciplinary a uthority found it not convenient to retain him in service. This court exercising writ jurisdiction cannot substitute the penalty by any other penalty.
Decision
In view of the above, I do not find any merit in the writ petition and according ly it is dismissed. However, irrespective of dismissal of the writ petition, it will be open for the petitioner to approach the authority for consideration, if any other penalty other than dismissal from service can be imposed on the petiti oner, without however, any back wages. There shall be no order as to costs.