P.N. SALUJA Vs. STATE BANK OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition has been filed by the petitioner against the respondent challenging the decision of his erstwhile employer, the respondent herein, to remove him from service after he had been found guilty of some acts of misconduct in the domestic enquiry held against him.

(2.) The relevant facts are that the petitioner was employed with the respondent in the year 1967 as a clerk and to begin with he was posted in one of the bank?s branches in Varanasi. In the year 1970 he was transferred to Kanpur and from there he was brought to Delhi in the year 1971. He came to be promoted as an Officer in October, 1977 and then was transferred to Firozpur Jhirka in September, 1980. However he did not join there and the respondent then issued a fresh transfer order transferring him to Gurgaon where he joined in November, 1980. From Gurgaon he was transferred to Palwal sometime in the year 1981 and finally in 1982 he was transferred to Faridabad.

(3.) It appears that on 8th June, 1983 the petitioner came to the bank?s regional office in Delhi from Faridabad to enquire about his increment which according to him was long overdue but was not being given to him. During that visit he met the Regional Manager and in that meeting he allegedly talked to the Regional Manager rudely. That incident led to his suspension on 13.06.1983. Nothing happened thereafter for quite sometime and it appears that the management had started digging out some more material against the petitioner to be used against him in the contemplated disciplinary proceedings against him and it succeeded in gathering some material which showed commission of some other acts of misconduct also by the petitioner in the earlier years. Then in October, 1983 he was served with a charge-sheet in respect of his misbehavior with the Regional Manager on 8th June, 1983 and besides that allegation some other allegations of misconduct committed by him in the past were also levelled against him and he was required to submit his explanation. The allegations levelled against him were that:-