ABHAI RAJ SINGH Vs. BANK OF BARODA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is working as a Head Cashier in Bank of Baroda and is posted in Tanda Shahabad Branch, in District Rampur. It transpires that an account holder in the bank filed a complaint against the petitioner and two others for committing a fraud in his account. Based on the F.I.R., an investigation was made and a report was submitted to the Competent Court. The Court took cognizance of the said report and a case was registered as Crime case No. 1402 of 2003 under Sections 218, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 409 I.P.C. which is pending in the Court of Judicial Magistrate, Rampur. The respondent-bank also made an in house inquiry and the disciplinary authority by an order dated October 8, 2003 issued a charge-sheet. The petitioner alleges that subject-matter of the charge-sheet in the domestic inquiry proceedings and that pending before the Criminal Court is one and the same and further contended that the evidence in both the proceedings would be the same and if the departmental proceedings are allowed to continue, the original documents which are lying in the Criminal Court would not be produced and that the domestic inquiry would continue without the production of the original documents. The petitioner therefore, prayed that the domestic inquiry proceedings should be stayed till the decision in Crime Case No. 1402 of 2003, pending in the Court of Judicial Magistrate, Rampur.

(2.) Heard Sri S.N. Dubey, the learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri V.B. Singh, learned senior advocate assisted by Sri Vijay Sinha, the learned counsel for the respondent-bank.

(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that since the departmental proceedings and the criminal proceedings are based on the same facts and that the documents relied upon would be the same, it would be appropriate that the departmental proceedings be kept in abeyance till the decision of the Criminal Court. He relied on the principles of "autrefois acquit" and the common law rule embodied in the maxim "Nemo debet bis vexari (a man must not be put twice in peril for the same offence) and the doctrine of double jeopardy and submitted that if the departmental proceedings are allowed to continue he would be prejudiced.