UNION OF INDIA Vs. N N PRAJAPATI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The two letters patent appeals are directed against the order of the learned Single Judge of this Court our brother R. C. Mankad. J.who was pleased to allow the special civil applications challenging the orders passed by the respective respondents i.e. the Postal Department and the Surveyor Generals Office. In the Letters Patent Appeal No. 38 of 1985 the employee was dealt with departmentally and punished with minor punishment whereas the employee in the Letters Patent Appeal No. 125 of 1985 was dealt with departmentally and removed from service. The Special Civil Application No. 395 of 1985 is filed by an employee of the Postal Department who at the close of the departmental proceedings has been visited with punishment of reduction to lower time-scale for a period of five years.

(2.) The learned Single Judge allowed the two petitions only on one ground namely non supply of the inquiry officers report by the disciplinary authority who extensively relied upon his assessment of evidentiary material both oral and documentary. in the said report for the purpose of his reaching the particular conclusion of guilt. In both these cases the departmental inquiry was entrusted to the inquiry officer before whom evidence oral and documentary was led and who had on the close of the said inquiry proceedings had submitted his detailed report to the disciplinary authority which forthwith proceeded to decide the matter without affording any opportunity of audience to the concerned petitioner-employee. Similar is the case in the substantive Special Civil Application No. 395 of 1985 the third matter in this group.

(3.) The learned counsel Mr. S. D. Shah appeared for the respective disciplinary authority in all the three matters. The gravamen of his submission was that after amendment in Article 311 of the Constitution of India by which amendment the requirement of giving a second show-cause notice at the conclusion of the first phase of the inquiry was dispensed with the inquiry report assumed little importance and therefore the earlier judicial pronouncements of the Supreme Court and of this High Court which provided for the furnishing of such an inquiry report were no longer good law. In our view this argument of Mr. Shah is unsustainable. It is no doubt true that the judgment of the Supreme Court was relied upon by the learned Single Judge and also by me sitting as a Single Judge. in the case of S. T. Dasadia v. Commissioner Surat Municipal Corporation 94 GLR 770. The cases are of time when Article 311 was not amended. However the ratio decidendi of these cases is on a different plane altogether. When the disciplinary authority who itself is not an inquiry officer conducting the departmental proceedings sits to decide the question about the alleged guilt or default of the concerned employee it is required to assess the entire material on its own and reach its own independent conclusion. We find that in all the three matters more than once the disciplinary authority has observed that it had considered the inquiry officers report in the light of other materials (which he did not specify but which only casually and loosely adverted to) and had ultimately agreed with the inquiry officers conclusion. It specifically states that it concurred with the conclusion of the inquiry officer. So it is not in any way difficult to say that for a substantial part if not wholly the inquiry officers report loomed large in the mind of the disciplinary authority for the purposes of reaching its conclusion. We reiterate that there is no discuss on of evidence. both oral and documentary. It is only a verbal homage given to the material in a sentence or two. A bald statement has been made that other documentary evidence had been considered by it but however in what manner it did is left conspicuously absent. When an authority which is expected to act quasi-judicially bases its decision substantially if not wholly on the report of an inquiry officer which report obviously would contain his assessment of the material through his eyes and his angle and when by the very nature of things he would highlight the points which are appealing more to him and by human weakness would try to tone down the facets of arguments and pleas advanced by the delinquent the disciplinary authority is expected to give report to the concerned delinquent and afford him an opportunity to have his say may be in writing and not necessarily oral as to the appreciation of the evidentiary material at the hands of the inquiry officer. If such a report which is substantially acting on the minds of the disciplinary authority in the process of its reaching the conclusion is not furnished one of the basic principles of natural justice stands violated. We therefore agree with the views of the learned Single Judge and hold that in the facts and circumstances of these three cases the concerned disciplinary authority had erred at law in not furnishing the alleged delinquents with the inquiry officers detailed report and therefore its conclusion stood vitiated.