- (1.) This special leave petition arises from the order of the Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, made on August 16, 1996 in CWP No. 12340/96, dismissing the petition in limine.
(2.) While the petitioner was working as Manager in the Food Corporation of India, Chandigarh Office, one Rajinder Singh Rana impersonating himself as Harjit Singh son of Ajit Singh, had succeeded in obtaining a contract with the Corporation for the year 1992-93 for transportation of the food grains. The petitioners duty was to verify the particulars furnished with the tender and to submit the same to the competent authority for taking decision in that behalf. In the verification report submitted by the petitioner, he had stated that Harjit Singh had produced a bank account with balance of Rs. 200/- while the certificate obtained by Harjit Singh allegedly from the Bank authorities, dated February 4, 1992 revealed "the balance of Harjit Singh as Rupees 56,400/-. As regards the value of residential House Building, the approved Designer and Architect had evaluated it. It was also stated that "the party holds an good reputation in the city." On that basis, the contract was obtained, but subsequently it was discovered that the said Harjit Singh son of Ajit Singh who obtained the contract was no other than Rajinder Singh Rana who misappropriated 1400 MT of superfine rice delivered to him for transportation ex-Khanna to Assam by road, Based thereon, disciplinary action was initiated against the petitioner and others for their dereliction of duty and misconduct in their failure to submit the report truthfully. After conduct of joint enquiry against all the officers, authority took decision that the petitioner be removed from service. Accordingly, he was removed. On appeal, it was confirmed by the Board in the proceedings dated April 26, 1996in an elaborate order running into 19 typed pages. The High Court has dismissed the petition in limine. Thus, this special leave petition.
(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioner has raised the contention that since the petitioner was required to be dismissed by the disciplinary authority, namely, Zonal Manager, who alone is competent to remove him, the order of dismissal passed by the Managing Director is bad in law. In support thereof, he placed reliance on a judgment of this Court in Surjit Ghosh v. Chairman and Managing Director, United Commercial Bank, AIR 1995 SC 1053. It is an admitted position that as a joint enquiry was conducted against all the delinquent officials, the highest in the hierarchy of competent authority who could take disciplinary action against the delinquents was none other than the Managing Director of the Corporation. In normal circumstances where the Managing Director being the appellate authority should not pass the order of punishment so as to enable the delinquent employee to avail of right of appeal. It is now well settled legal position that an authority lower than the appointing authority cannot take any decision in the matter of disciplinary action. But there is no prohibition in law that the higher authority should not take decision or impose the penalty as the primary authority in the matter of disciplinary action. On that basis, it cannot be said that there will be discrimination violating Article 14 of the Constitution or causing material prejudice. In the judgment relied on by the counsel, it would appear that in the Rules, officer lower in hierarchy was the disciplinary authority but the appellate authority had passed the order removing the officer from service. Thereby, appellate remedy provided under the Rules was denied. In those circumstances, this Court opined that it caused prejudice to the delinquent as he would have otherwise availed of the appellate remedy and his right to consider his case by an appellate authority on question of fact was not available. But it cannot be laid as a rule of law that in all circumstances the higher authority should consider and decide the case imposing penalty as a primary authority under the Rules. In this case, a right of second appeal/revision also was provided to the Board. In fact, appeal was preferred to the Board. The Board elaborately considered the matter through the Chairman. It is not violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.;