Order Passed By Authority After Considering Delinquent Employee’s Objection To Inquiry Report Merits To Be Sustained: P&H HC

While considering an issue as to allegation of fault in imposition of punishment, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that after an inquiry report has been submitted to the punishing authority, the punishing authority is required to put the same across to the delinquent employee and ask for his comments.

A Single Judge Bench of Justice Pankaj Jain observed that “after inquiry report has been submitted to the punishing authority, the punishing authority is required to put the same across to the delinquent and ask for his comments. It is an important stage. Only after receiving reply to the show cause notice, punishing authority has to apply its mind. The stage as aforesaid is not mere formality, but is rather in consonance with the principles of natural justice recognized to weed out the arbitrariness and to promote reasonableness in this whole process”.

Advocate Harinder Sharma appeared for the Petitioner, whereas Senior Advocate G.S. Bal appeared for the Respondent.

Going by the background of the case, the Petitioner who was working as Clerk with the Respondent-Board was served with a chargesheet and a regular departmental inquiry was conducted. The Petitioner was held guilty and was served with the show cause notice along with inquiry report. Since the Petitioner pleaded innocence, the order dismissing him from service was passed after giving him opportunity of hearing. After, the Petitioner preferred a civil suit, the disciplinary authority found that the Petitioner ought to have been given full opportunity to defend his case and sent the matter back to the inquiry officer. Resultantly, fresh inquiry officer was appointed, who conducted de-novo inquiry against the Petitioner. Since the Petitioner opted not to participate in the same deliberately, he was ordered to be dismissed from service based on submission of fresh inquiry report. Hence, present petition.

After considering the submission and referring to the Employees Punishment and Appeal Regulations framed under clause (b) of sub-section 2 of Section 24 of the Punjab School Education Board Act, 1969, the High Court found that after the inquiry report was submitted with the punishing authority, obviously punishing authority in compliance of the procedure as laid down in the regulation 10 provided copy thereof to the delinquent along with show cause notice.

The High Court also noted that after the Petitioner complained of lack of fairness and the authority found favour with the grievance raised by him, the authority exercised power as contemplated under Rule 10 to order further inquiry.

Thus, finding that after the inquiry officer expressed his inability, the disciplinary authority resorted to Regulation 9(15)(a), the Bench reiterated that a provision has to be read as whole and same cannot be split in stages.

Therefore, considering the fact that employee has deliberately opted not to participate in the second inquiry proceedings, the Bench held that no fault could be found with the same and dismissed the petition. 

Sawran Singh v. State of Punjab and Anr. [ Neutral Citation: 2023: PHHC: 074596]

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