RAM SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE commonness of the facts and the questions of law involved in these OAs allow us to hear these cases together and dispose of by a common order. For the sake of convenience, facts are taken from OA No. 1427/HR/2013.

(2.) THE present OA is directed against an order dated 7.5.2013 (Annexure A -1) whereby the representation of the applicant for review of penalty awarded vide order dated 9.7.2010 has been rejected, the order dated 9.7.2010 of the Disciplinary Authority (Annexure A -4) inflicting the punishment of stoppage of one increment in the time scale of pay for one year with cumulative effect and the enquiry report dated 3.7.2009 (Annexure A -6). The applicant has sought issuance of further directions to the respondents to treat the period of suspension with effect from 12.9.2008 to 18.3.2009 as duty period or leave of its kind due for all intents and purposes.

(3.) PURSUANT to notice, the respondents have resisted the claim of the applicant by filing a detailed written statement, wherein they have taken a preliminary objection that the OA deserves to be dismissed on the ground of delay and laches as the applicant is impugning the order dated 9.7.2010, after a period of more than three years. They have also submitted that the applicant cannot be allowed to challenge the order dated 9.7.2010 at this stage as once he had accepted the same, without challenging the same before the Appellate Authority. The acquittal in the criminal case also does not give him a right to seek reopening of the closed case wherein he was awarded punishment, which he has already accepted without any objection. They have also placed reliance on a judgment passed by the Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of Samar Bahadur Singh versus State of U.P. & Ors. : (2011(4) R.S.J. Page 697) and a judgment passed by the Hon'ble Punjab & Haryana High Court in the case of Hari Kishan versus Central Administrative Tribunal, Chandigarh Bench, Chandigarh & Ors., (2012(3) R.S.J. Page 381) to the effect that the acquittal in the criminal case shall have no bearing upon the departmental proceedings.