D I G OF POLICE Vs. SANKARAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The respondents in the appeal faced a criminal prosecution and finally they were acquitted. On the same set of facts which led to the criminal prosecution they were again charged in disciplinary proceedings. They objected to this. But the proceedings were continued. . Thereupon they challenged the proceedings in this court. The learned Single Judge whose Judgment is under challenge in this appeal relied on R.10(b) of the Kerala Police Departmental Inquiries, Punishment and Appeal Rules, 1958 (hereinafter referred to as the Rules) to find that the proceedings cannot be continued. It is useful to set down the rule here:

(2.) We are aware that our learned brother Vadakkel J. in Nanappan Pillai v. State of Kerala, 1977 KLT 298 took a slightly different view, the learned Judge did not agree with the view expressed by the Madras High Court in J. D'Silva v. R.T.A., AIR 1952 Mad. 853 followed in several other later decisions and that was evidently because the learned Judge took the view that after the decision of the Supreme Court in Maqbool Hussain v. State of Bombay, AIR 1953 SC 325 and Venkataraman v. Union of India, AIR 1954 SC 375 , the view expressed by the Madras High Court cannot be good law. We once again desire to point out that there would have been no bar to holding disciplinary proceedings on the same set of facts merely because a Criminal Court had in a prosecution found in favour of the officers charged with the offence. But the position is different when the rule making authority has chosen to incorporate a rule creating an express bar in continuing such proceedings. Evidently the learned Judge missed to notice the significance of this provision. No doubt in Para.6 of the judgment the learned Judge has referred to the bar being only a bar of issue estoppel. But we do not find any reason to consider the scope of the rule as enabling further proceedings to be taken when once the earlier proceedings had adjudicated on the question one way or the other.