- (1.) THIS appeal is directed against the judgment of the High Court of Allahabad interferring with an order of punishment inflicted upon the respondent in a disciplinary proceedings.
(2.) ADMTTEDLY , the respondent was an Assistant Warder and the allegation against him was that he along with 4 other Assistant Warder beaten one Shivdan Singh, and even though the senior officers disuaded them, they never listened to that. These allegations were proved in a departmetal proceedings and the disciplinary authority passed the order of dismissal so far as the present respondent is concerned, though in respect of some others, he passed the order of stoppage of 5 increments. The respondent assailed the legality of the order by approaching the Public Service Tribunal. The Tribunal having refused to interfere, he approached the High Court. The High Court came to the conclusion that the charges and the delinquency being same and identical, and all the employees having been served with a set of charges out of the same incident, there was no justifiable reason to pass different orders of punishment, and therefore the order of dismissal cannot be sustained. The High Court consequently set aside the order of dismissal and directed stoppage of 5 increments in case of the respondent as was the order in case of some other Assistant Warder. The High Court further directed that the delinquent respondent would be paid only 50% of back wages. It is this order of the High Court which is the subject matter of challenge in this appeal.
(3.) IT is contended on behalf of the appellants that once the charges have been held to be established, it was not appropriate for the High Court to interfere with the quantum of punishment and judged from this stand point, the order of the High Court cannot be sustained. In support of the said contention, reliance is placed on the decision of this Court in B. C. Chaturvedi v U.O.I. and Others, 1995 (6) SCC 749 and Secretary to Govt., Home Deptt. and Others v. Srivaikundathan, 1998 (9) SCC 553;