IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.1934 of 1987 (O&M) Date of decision: 04.10.2011 Pritam Singh Mural, resident of Village Bhikhapur, Post Office Sukhsal via Nangal, Tehsil Anandpur Sahib, District Ropar. ....Petitioner versus The Punjab State Ware Housing Corporation, Ware Housing Bhawan, Bank Square, Sector 17-B, Chandigarh, through its Secretary, and others. ....Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. Bhag Singh, Advocate, and Mr. B.B.S.Sobti, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Navdeep Sukhna, DAG, Punjab, for respondent No.1. Mr. R.S.Riar, Advocate, for respondents 2 to 4. ---- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? No. 2. To be referred to the reporters or not ? No. 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest ? No. ---- K.Kannan, J. 1. The petitioner challenges the order of dismissal from the post of a Warehouse Manager. The action was taken subsequent to constitution of departmental enquiry and charges of misconduct. The statement of charge against the petitioner was that he in connivance with one Ashok Kumar Verma, Godown Assistant and Jagtar Singh, yet another Godown Assistant, caused misappropriation of 1648 Civil Writ Petition No.1934 of 1987 (O&M) - 2 - bags of Urea and 220 bags of DAP from Godown Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the State Warehouse, Ludhiana, causing a loss to the Corporation to the tune of Rs.2,19,889/-. That, further, he, in connivance with the Assistants, had caused adulteration of 4808 bags of DAP and 4104 bags of Urea in Godown Nos.1, 2 and 5 of State Warehouse, Ludhiana, causing loss to the Corporation to the tune of Rs.12,79,266/- and that the petitioner was responsible for getting several bags of DAP spillage in three of the areas with intention to defalcate the same and that he deliberately absented himself from 23.04.1982 till he was placed under suspension on 02.07.1982. Along with the charge-sheet, there had been annexures giving out the specific details for the basis of the charges. 2. The counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner had not opened to me at the time of arguments any of the factual details brought out through the report of the Enquiry Officer. He had mounted the challenge on four grounds: (i) the Managing Director did not have the competence to initiate the action by appointment of the Enquiry Officer; (ii) the statement of charges had not been supplied to him; (iii) he had not been handed over the charge of the godown from the District Manager, Shri J.S.Bedi and he could not be held responsible for the alleged loss; and (iv) he had been made a scapegoat for the wrong committed by the District Manager Shri J.S.Bedi, who was reinstated in service but only the petitioner had been served with the order of dismissal. Civil Writ Petition No.1934 of 1987 (O&M) - 3 - 3. As regards the first objection that the Managing Director was not competent to initiate the enquiry, I do not find the objection taken at any time when the charge-sheet was framed and delivered to the petitioner or even in the memorandum of appeal which he had filed against the decision of the respondents for dismissal of the petitioner. In the writ petition, the petitioner has referred a Punjab State Warehousing Corporation Staff Regulations, 1960 that sets out the classification of employees as Class-I, Class-II and Class-III officers. According to the petitioner, Regulation 17 which empowers the Managing Director to impose the penalties against Class-I, II and III cannot be applied in a case where the office of Warehousing Manager is not stated under any of the categories of employees. I cannot accept this argument because, Regulation 17 includes the power of the managing director to impose penalties to all categories in the establishment and it will be futile to urge that the petitioner stands excluded from the cadre that no action could be taken against him. His contention in the statement of charge had not been supplied to him is also meaningless, for, I have seen that he has responded elaborately to the charges and the enquiry before the Enquiry Officer has been conducted at full length on the basis of the petitioner’s defence raised through his reply to the charges issued to the petitioner. I am not prepared to examine the third objection taken by the petitioner at the time of arguments through his counsel that he had not been handed over the charge and possession of the Civil Writ Petition No.1934 of 1987 (O&M) - 4 - Warehouse. His plea that the District Manager alone was responsible and that he was being made a scapegoat are meaningless if we consider that the Enquiry Officer as well as the disciplinary authority have dealt with the issue of full-fledged factual details. I do not want to repeat them but I am convinced that the authority had found no reason to differ with the findings of the Enquiry Officer. I will only paraphrase the justification for the decision of the Enquiry Officer which was affirmed subsequently by the disciplinary authority. 4. The disciplinary authority has found that as regards the fairness of procedure adopted by the Enquiry Officer that the enquiry file did not reveal that the petitioner at any point of time sought for permission to engage another government employee as a defence counsel. The witnesses had been examined in his presence and the complaint of the petitioner that he had not been given the copies of statements of witnesses was, therefore, not tenable. As a matter of fact, the petitioner had availed the opportunity of examination of the witnesses produced by the Corporation. The finding of defalcation came through production of evidence of Angrej Singh, the Accounts Clerk and the only document that could not be produced were the suspension register for the year 1982-83 and the dead stock register for the year 1981-82 since they had been taken into custody of the police in the criminal case registered against the petitioner. The disciplinary authority has reasoned that Civil Writ Petition No.1934 of 1987 (O&M) - 5 - the petitioner himself did not think of calling for the production of the document and if there ever were favourable inputs for the petitioner, he could have been taken steps to have them summoned from the criminal Court or taken attested copies of the same from documents in police custody. No prejudice could, therefore, be said to have been caused by the non-production of the records, setting out the details of the opportunity availed by the petitioner to let in evidence in support of his defence, the Enquiry Officer as well as the disciplinary authority had examined the statement of Kuldip Singh and the admission by him that the petitioner used to inspect the godowns, when they were opened by Ashok Kumar and Jagtar Singh, who were the Accounts Assistants, when the petitioner was trying to contend that he could not have had access to the godowns' locks which had a double locking system. I find nothing substantial has been brought by the petitioner to assail the findings of the disciplinary authority. 5. The learned counsel also argued that there was a criminal case pending at the same time on the same charges and the simultaneous proceedings before the Criminal Court and the departmental proceedings could not have been undertaken. A large body of case law is available that underscores the basic precept that the Criminal Court proceedings and departmental proceedings operate on distinct areas. While in the former, the mode of proof is beyond reasonable doubt, in the departmental proceedings, the Civil Writ Petition No.1934 of 1987 (O&M) - 6 - findings are rendered only on preponderance of probabilities. The degree of formality that exists in Criminal Court is not attached to departmental proceedings. The strict rules of evidence that could be attracted to criminal Court contract shall again be not attracted to departmental action unless the basis of the charge or punishment itself is the result of the Criminal Court adjudication. The findings of Criminal Court could never be relevant in a departmental action merely because the subject of charge in the criminal court proceedings and the departmental action is the same. I do not, under the circumstances, reproduce the large body of case law which had been relied on by the learned counsel for the petitioner and the respondent giving out their respective stand on the relevance of criminal court proceedings in departmental action. I have extracted the first principles of law relating to the relevance of criminal court judgment in departmental action and I will rest the decision on such principles. 6. I find no reason to interfere with the departmental action taken for termination of services of the petitioner. The writ petition shall, therefore, stand dismissed. (K. KANNAN) JUDGE 04.10.2011 sanjeev