High Court

Legal Reasoning

HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE T.VAIPHEI In this writ petition, the petitioner is questioning the legality of the order d ated 16.06.2004 passed by they Managing Director, FCI (Respondent No. 2), awardi ng a penalty of (cid:28)Reduction in rank to the minimum of the time scale of pay of AM (QC) till his retirement on 31.12.2006 with further direction that he will earn increments during the period of such reduction. (cid:29) 2. The genesis of the case was that the petitioner, while functioning as As sistant Manager (Depot) at FSD, FCI, Cinnamara, the District PV Team conducted t he annual PV by way of 100% weighment of stocks in respect of Chamber No. 4 of S hed ’8’ and rest of the stocks in the same shed by peripherial counting as on 31 .03.1979. The petitioner was admittedly in-charge of the depot at that time and signed and certified the Census list to authenticate that the District P.V. Repo rt stating that no shortage of stocks was detected. According to the respondent authorities, subsequently, the Special Physical Verification Team from Zonal Off ice (NE) conducted Special P.V. by way of 100% weighment of total stock as well as peripherial counting of bags in Shed ’B’ on the basis of stock declaration o btained on 26.04.1997, the date on which Annual Physical Verification was conduc ted. During Special Physical Verification, a shortage of about 10,499 quintals o f food grains worth ‘1,01,28,915.63 paise was detected, while surprisingly no sh ortage could be detected by the Annual P.V. Team. The District Annual Physical V erification was obviously not carried out properly though the report was duly au thenticated by the petitioner; he had given opportunity to the Shed In-charge an d other staff to manipulate and misappropriate the stocks for pecuniary gains. T he petitioner being the overall in-charge of the depot had also failed to conduc t physical counting of stocks in the depot once in a month as per existing proce dure to ascertain the stocks which could have checked the malpractice in the god own at the early stage. Instead of doing so, he allowed the shed in-charges to i ndulge in daring irregularities/misappropriation of stocks and gave opportunity to the shed in-charge to escape from being detected in respect of the huge short ages of food grains stocked in the godown. The petitioner was accordingly charge -sheeted along with some other officials. 3. y, the enquiry officer came to the following conclusions:- The enquiry was thereafter conducted and, after completion of the enquir (cid:28)Conclusions - (1) Majority of stock, at Cinnamara, B-shedd was uncountable posi tion in 1996, but in April’97 the stocks Cinnamara B-Shed were made countable af ter joining of Shri Hussain as Depot Incharge FSD Cinnamara. (II) Shri Samirul Hussain AM (GC) In-charge did no make the monthly physical ver ification by count of all stocks of Cinnamara B-Shed as per clause IX of para 15-4 of the FCI Stocks manual even in the 1st week of April’97 when the stocks i n shed B were admittedly in countable position. He could and should have so done before certifying and singing the census list. The defence contention that inab ility on the part of Shri Hussain to conduct monthly physical by count of stock s in shed B on the ground of uncountable position of the same is a general state ment and no tenable least for April’97 when the stocks were admittedly countable . (III) Shri Hussain certified that the stock balance in stock as on 31.03.97 as p er column 4 of the census list has been personally verified by him by peripheria l counts reflected in closing stocks on 31.03.97 and that there was no discrepan cy in the number of bags on such peripherial count, without conducting any such physical verificfation by count of all stocks in shed b and in spite of the grou nd realities of 7602 bags rice=7012. & &(sic) in 5 (five) out of total 12 (twelv e) stacks in chamber No. 1 and in one stack in chamber No. 3 of shed B which sho uld have been there as per stack Ledger as well as declaration of the shed Incha rge were not physically available. (cid:29) Accepting the enquiry report, the Zonal Manager (East)/Disciplinary Authority vi de his order dated 27.02.2004 awarded a penalty of reduction to the lower basic pay as for T.A. Gr. I (?). The petitioner was, accordingly, directed to remain a s T R Gr. I till his retirement i.e. 31.12.2006. He was, however, allowed to ear n increments of pay in the scale of TA Gr.I with immediate effect. Aggrieved by this, the petitioner preferred W.P.(C) No. 2231/04 before t 4. his Court. This Court by order dated 26.03.2004 disposed of the same by directin g the petitioner to prefer an appeal as provided for under regulation 67 of the Food Corporation of India (Staff) Regulation, 1971, before the appropriate auth ority. The respondent No. 2, in purported compliance with the order of this Cour t, passed the impugned order by modifying the aforesaid penalty. Being aggrieved thereby, the petitioner is initiating this second round of litigation for appro priate relief. On going through the findings of the enquiry officer which was pr oduced earlier, it is seen that the petitioner joined the post of Assistant Mana ger, Depot on 9.7.1996, but the stock which was accountable was in respect of 19 96 whereas in April, 1997, the stocks were made accountable. From this, it can b e safely concluded that after his joining the depot, stock position had become i mproved considerably. The only problem with the petitioner appears to be that he had countersigned the census list prepared by the said in-charge which he ought not to have done without proper verification. In other words, the petitioner by countersigning the said census list had unwittingly exposed himself to the char ges leveled against him. In my opinion, he could at the most be held to be gulli ble or, at any rate, lacking in alertness while supervising the functioning of h is subordinates. This is what the conclusions of the enquiry officer in his repo rt had suggested though he did not say so expressly. Having admitted that the st ock position was accounted after he joined the said post, the disciplinary autho rity should not have awarded the impugned penalty. 5. I am, however, not unmindful of the limited jurisdiction of this Court t o interfere with the findings of guilt recorded by the disciplinary authority, a nd of the quantum of sentence imposed by him in the departmental enquiry. In my considered opinion, even if the charge levelled against the petitioner is found to be proved, the penalty imposed upon him is grossly disproportionate to the mi sconduct proved against him: his only misconduct was the trust naively placed by him upon his crooked subordinate officials, who apparently took advantage of gu llibility. I am told that the petitioner has now retired from service on superan nuation. In the view that I have taken, the limited interference of this Court o n the penalties imposed upon the petitioner warranted. Resultantly, this writ petition is allowed. The impugned order dated 16. 6. 06.20104 is hereby quashed. The case is remitted to the respondent No. 2, for mo difying the penalty imposed upon the petitioner to a punishment lesser than the penalty imposed upon him in the impugned order. The exercise shall be completed within a period of 3 months from the date of receipt of this judgment. The petit ioner will obtain a certified copy of this judgment and submit it to the respond ent No. 2 without any delay.