IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No 10186 of 2009 S K Baranwal @ Sanjay Kumar Baranwal, son of late Nand Lal Singh, c/o Baranwal Electricals, 54/76 Mahavir Road, Orderly Bazar, Varanasi, district – Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), at present posted as Assistant Accounts Officer, SFC, Madhubani - Petitioner Versus 1 The Bihar State Food & Civil Supplies Corporation through its Managing Director 2 Managing Director, Bihar State Food and Civil Supplies Corporation 3 Chief Administrative, Bihar State Food and Civil Supplies Corporation 4 Deputy Chief Administrative/Chief of Procurement, Bihar State Food and Civil Supplies Corporation 5 Pramukh Adhiprapti –cum- Conducting Officer, Bihar State Food and Civil Supplies Corporation 6 Chief of Sugar –cum- Conducting Officer, Bihar State Food and Civil Supplies Corporation, All at Sone Bhawan, Bir Chand Patel Path, Patna, District - Patna - Respondents ----------- 2 21.08.2009 The petitioner is an employee of the Bihar State Food and Civil Supplies Corporation Limited, a State Government undertaking. It appears that a departmental proceeding was initiated against the petitioner on or about 31.08.1999. That proceeding was concluded by order of punishment given by the Deputy Chief Administrator and communicated to the petitioner by Memo No 4718 dated 16.08.2000. That consisted of 3 orders. First, suspension was revoked. Second, one annual increment was stopped and lastly, the suspension period was to be treated as period in service with all benefits. This order was revised under orders of the Managing Director and the revised order was communicated by the Chief Administrator under Memo No 3736 dated 21.06.2001. By this, the punishment was modified gravely to the prejudice of the petitioner. Petitioner was censured. 5 annual increments with cumulative effect were stopped. No further payment for suspension period was to be made. Petitioner challenged both these orders before this Court in CWJC No 4967 of 2 2003 which was heard and by judgment and order dated 13.04.2009, it was allowed. Both these orders were set aside. After the writ petition was allowed and both the orders were set aside, petitioner filed the same before the Chief Administrator and prayed for payment of remuneration which petitioner was deprived of. In response thereto, he was visited with a purported second show cause notice issued by the Managing Director of the Corporation dated 04.07.2009. This is what is under challenge. Petitioner has annexed the copy of enquiry report as well wherein in the conclusion, the Enquiring Officer, as far back as in the year 2000, had exonerated the petitioner. Petitioner submits that when this Court set aside the original order as well as order purporting to review the said order and enhancing the punishment, it was not open to the Managing Director to reinitiate the proceedings by issuance of a second show cause notice in this regard. On the other hand, Mr R S Pradhan, learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the Corporation submits that this Court had not prevented the Corporation from reinitiating the proceedings. The Managing Director was, thus, competent to issue the second show cause notice. The notice is not without jurisdiction. Heard the parties and with their consent, the writ application is being disposed of at this stage itself. As would be seen from the order of this Court earlier apart from other grievance, one of the grievances of the petitioner was that the original order was passed without even disclosing the enquiry report to the petitioner. Even though enquiry report had exonerated the 3 petitioner, petitioner was straightaway found guilty. This is what this Court had earlier disapproved and that is why the original order was first quashed. This Court then observed that there was no provision for enhancement of punishment by a superior authority and that too without notice. It is because of that the second order was set aside. Further, it was held that as the first order was bad, the second order, in any view of the matter, could not stand. Thus seen, the entire proceeding was effectively held to be bad. Now, this Court fails to understand how the Managing Director has assumed jurisdiction in the matter and that too by issuing a second show cause notice straightaway. That is clearly not permissible in the facts aforesaid. Managing Director is the penultimate authority for imposing punishment. He has wrongly assumed jurisdiction in the matter. Annexure-9 is, accordingly, not sustainable and set aside. As noticed above, the enquiry report, which is now for the first time being given to the petitioner after almost a decade, also exonerates the petitioner. In my view, it will no more be just, fair or proper to take any further action in this regard by the respondent-Corporation. The petitioner has been sufficiently harassed for a decade and already suffered enough by way of wrongful deprivation of his remuneration. The matter must be put to an end once and for all. The impugned second show cause notice dated 04.07.2009 is, accordingly, quashed with the directions and observations above. The writ application is allowed. M.E.H./ (Navaniti Prasad Singh) 4