Civil Writ Petition No.1047 of 2009 :1: IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision: March 17, 2011 Manmohan Singh ...Petitioner VERSUS General Manager (Punjab) Food Corporation of India, Chandigarh & another ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Present: Mr.Manmohan Singh petitioner in person. Ms.Jai Shree Thakur, Advocate, for the respondents. ***** RANJIT SINGH, J. The petitioner seeks quashing of penalty order dated 26.11.2007 (Annexure P-6) imposing penalty of `50,000/- and also for quashing the order dated 8.5.2008 (Annexure P-9) rejecting his appeal. The amount of penalty has been deducted from the retiral benefits payable to him. Civil Writ Petition No.1047 of 2009 :2: In the year 1970, the petitioner was appointed as Assistant Grade-III (Depot) in Food Corporation of India. He was promoted as Assistant Grade-II in the year 1972. In the year 1981, he was promoted as Assistant Grade-I and then promoted as Manager (D) in the month of December, 2005. For the period from May 1983 to July 1984, the petitioner was posted in J&K region when he was transferred from District Patiala. Thereafter, the petitioner was again transferred to District Patiala and posted at Sirhind. Shortly before his superannuation, which was due on 30.11.2007, the petitioner was served a charge-sheet on 8.10.2007 regarding some shortage loss in rice, which had taken place in the hired godowns at Sirhind. This loss was stated for the period from 1984-85. The grievance of the petitioner is that the respondents without specifying the unit and stocks held by cash stock holder, had issued this charge sheet. As per the petitioner, this charge sheet was based on fictitious and manipulated photostat copies of storage loss statement on which the petitioner's signatures were shown as `Sd/' and not the actual signatures. It is accordingly stated that these were forged to foist responsibility for the loss on the petitioner. The petitioner submitted his reply to the charge sheet on 6.11.2007. As per the petitioner, he has lost track of all record and documents to defend the case as it was a loss, which had taken place 23 years ago from the date of issuing the charge sheet. The petitioner pleads that the delay is so long that he is rendered incapable to put up any defence. Similar plea is also raised by the petitioner before the authorities but the same has not been considered. The petitioner points out that during the relevant period Civil Writ Petition No.1047 of 2009 :3: upto July, 1984, he was posted in J&K region. The General Manager (Punjab), Food Corporation of India imposed a penalty of recovery of `50,000/- without providing any document to the petitioner to pin-point the charges held by the petitioner during that period. The petitioner retired on 30.11.2007. On 15.12.2007, he made an application under Right to Information Act for defence documents, but the same were not provided to him. The petitioner filed an appeal against this order on 14.1.2008. The appeal was also rejected on 8.5.2008 and petitioner, thus, has filed this writ petition in person. Notice was issued to the respondents, who have filed reply. In response, it is submitted that the time of receipt of rice stocks under the charge of petitioner is a matter of record and the same are not based on presumption as claimed by the petitioner. It is pointed out that there were a staggering losses amounting to `16,50,140/-. Committee of three officers had considered this issue before initiating disciplinary proceedings against the petitioner. The finding was that the losses were abnormal to the tune of 2.20% than the normal loss, which would vary upto 1.17%. The respondents accordingly would plead that the petitioner being posted at the relevant time in the year 1984-85 could not escape responsibility from this loss. The absence of documents appears to have weighed with the punishing authority to impose this penalty on the petitioner. This can be so seen from the impugned order. The punishing authority had noticed the statement made by the petitioner that his name was Civil Writ Petition No.1047 of 2009 :4: planted on the statement by some one maliciously. The disciplinary authority rejected his contention on the ground that explanation tendered by the officer is not convincing and that he had failed to adduce any documentary evidence to prove that he was not the custodian of the stocks and stocks were not despatched by him. The difficulty with the petitioner to support his contention on some of the documents was genuine and real. Even till now, no documents are forthcoming to show the same. The petitioner had done best to make an application under the Right to Information Act to ask for documents, but the same could not be supplied to him as these are perhaps not available. Counsel for the respondents would not dispute this fact that difficulty of documents indeed was faced by the respondents themselves also. This perhaps would explain the reason as to why delays are considered fatal in taking action as it makes a person incapacitated for defending himself. It has been generally viewed that the disciplinary proceedings normally should be initiated well within time as by passage of time, one is likely to loose the material, which would be relevant for the defence of an individual. Delay, under such circumstances, is to be considered fatal and there cannot be a better example of rendering a person incapable of defending himself than this one. Even the respondents did not have the documents to pass an appropriate order. Delay in such like cases always be fatal. Reference here may be made to the case of The State of Madhya Pradesh Vs. Bani Singh and another, AIR 1990 Supreme Court 1308, where the Hon'ble Supreme Court rejected the contention that the proceedings could not be quashed merely on the Civil Writ Petition No.1047 of 2009 :5: ground of delay and laches. Even in State of Punjab and others Vs. Chaman Lal Goyal, (1995) 2 Supreme Court Cases 570, the question whether the delay would warrant quashing of the charges was considered by the Hon'ble Supreme Court. It is observed that such disciplinary proceedings must be conducted soon after the irregularities are committed or soon after discovering the irregularities. These can not be initiated after lapse of considerable time. Such a course is held not to be fair to the delinquent officer. Such delay also makes the task of proving the charge difficult and, thus, would not be in the interest of administration. Delayed initiation of proceedings was observed to give room for allegations of bias, malafide and misuse of power. It is accordingly observed that if the delay is too long and is unexplained, the Court may well interfere and quash the charge. No doubt, how long a delay is to be considered would always depend upon the facts of the given case. If such delay is likely to cause prejudice to the delinquent officer in defending himself, the enquiry has to be interdicted. Whenever such plea is raised, the Courts have to weigh the factors appearing for and against the said plea and take a decision on the totality of the circumstances. The Court, thus, has to indulge in the process of balancing. Examining the facts in this case in the light of above proposition of law, the delay in the present case not only would appear to be causing prejudice to the petitioner but has remained unexplained. An issue pertaining to the year 1984 was racked up against the petitioner to serve him charge sheet on 6.11.2007. The charge sheet, thus, was served to the petitioner after 23 years of the Civil Writ Petition No.1047 of 2009 :6: incident. The petitioner prayed for supply of documents, which were not even found in possession of the respondents. The absence of documents weighed with the authorities also to reject the explanation given by the petitioner. Even the documents could not be produced during the course of hearing of the present petition. There is no explanation offered to explain this inordinate delay in issuing the charge sheet to the petitioner. All the factors, thus, if weighed in the parameters noticed above, would appear against the respondents and if balanced, the conclusion will be irresistible that the delay has caused prejudice to the petitioner and has rather been so prolonged that the petitioner was rendered in no capacity to defend himself for these stale charges. The petitioner has made reference to Bachitar Singh Vs. State of Punjab, 1998(2) SCT 99. This court had even quashed the enquiry proceedings on the ground that it will be a futile exercise as the record was not available. In view of the position explained above, the writ petition deserves to be allowed. It is so ordered. The amount of ` 50,000/- recovered from the retiral benefits of the petitioner shall be refunded to him within a period of one month from the date of receipt of copy of this order. In case, this amount is not refunded within the specified period, then it will carry interest @9% per annum from the date it is due to the petitioner. March 17, 2011 ( RANJIT SINGH ) ramesh JUDGE