N S SHINDE Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition has been instituted by a constable attached to the Central Industrial Security Force (for short 'CISF') seeking for a declaration that the order passed by the 2nd respondent, the Director General of the CISF on 24.1.2003 as illegal and consequently to direct the respondents to treat the intervening period from 30.10.1980 to 19.3.1997 as continuation of service rendered by him and for payment of backwages.

(2.) The facts which are relevant for our inquiry are these:

(3.) The writ petitioner was appointed as a constable/security guard in the CISF on 17.1.1970. He was subsequently promoted as a Head Constable in August 1978. While he was on duty at the LPG plant of the Indian Oil Corporation Unit at Baroda in the State of Gujarat between 13 Hours to 21 Hours on 21.12.1979, a truck bearing Registration No. RSB 969 which brought 350 empty cylinders and was to carry equal number of filled in cylinders, was subjected to a check by the officers of the CISF at Gate No. 10 of the plant. They found that truck was carrying 350 filled in cylinders and also one empty cylinder, which was hidden in a tarpolin cover kept on the roof of the cabin of the driver of the truck. For this unauthorized carrying away an empty cylinder, the officers have found fault with the writ petitioner who is the Head Security Guard on duty at that time, for his lax supervision. The writ petitioner has been subjected to disciplinary proceedings and was also subjected to prosecution of a criminal case. The disciplinary proceedings have culminated in an order passed on 25.10.1980 by the Deputy Inspector General of CISF imposing the punishment of dismissal from service of the writ petitioner. That was the subject matter of consideration in a writ petition before the High Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad in Special Civil Application No. 1591 of 1981. By the judgment dated 3.8.1996, the Gujarat High Court found that the charge laid against the writ petitioner therein was only of negligence, but not of connivance, collusion or of help extended for extraneous considerations for pilferage of one empty LPG cylinder from the plant. After noticing that the past service record of the petitioner was blemishless, and also noticing the fact that the criminal court has acquitted the writ petitioner of the charge laid against him on merits, the Gujarat High Court found that the penalty of dismissal imposed against the petitioner is disproportionate to the charges leveled and proved. Hence, the matter has been remanded to the appellate authority to decide what appropriate penalty should be imposed upon the writ petitioner for that portion of the proven negligence.