LAWS(MPH)-2020-1-133

UNION OF INDIA Vs. VISHWAS NIMGAONKAR

Decided On January 21, 2020
UNION OF INDIA Appellant
V/S
Vishwas Nimgaonkar Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners-Union of India have filed the present petition being aggrieved by order dated 31.07.2019 passed by Central Administrative Tribunal, Bench Indore in Original Application No.200/00678/2015 (Narayan Chouhan vs Union of India and Others), whereby the learned CAT has allowed the OA No.200/00678/2015 partly and set aside the punishment order dated 13.06.2014 passed by the Disciplinary Authority as well as the order dated 23.05.2015 passed by the Appellate Authority. It has been argued before this Court that the Inquiry Officer has exonerated the employee of the alleged misconduct and the disciplinary authority has arrived at a conclusion that the employee has committed the misconduct and thereafter a show cause notice to the employee was issued and in those circumstances, Central Administrative Tribunal had remanded the matter back to the disciplinary authority to proceed ahead from the stage of recording the dissenting note. Paragraphs 5 to 7 of the judgment (Narayan Chouhan vs Union of India) reads as under:

(2.) We find that issue involved in this Original Application has already been adjudicated upon by us in the case of Vishwas Nimgaonkar (supra). The relevant portion of the orders read as under: "16. The facts are not in dispute. The applicant was issued with a major penalty chargesheet under Rule 14 of CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 on 30.09.2009. Alongwith the applicant, there were two employees viz; Shri Mool Chand Purania and Shri Narayan Chouhan, who were served with a common chargesheet with the same set of charge that despite not being sponsored by the Employment Exchange, Indore, the then Superintendent of Post Offices, had allowed them to appear in the selection for the post of Postal Assistant, which resulted in their appointment. A detailed enquiry was conducted into the matter and after examining the witnesses and the material produced before him, the Inquiry Officer submitted his inquiry report and the charges were not found to be proved against all the three employees. However, the Disciplinary Authority sent a disagreement note to the applicant on 04.04.2012. The applicant had challenged the action of the Disciplinary Authority in issuing the disagreement note by filing Original Application No.370/2012, which was dismissed on 28.11.2013. Writ Petition No.13798/2013 filed by the applicant against the orders of this Tribunal, was also dismissed by the Hon'ble High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Indore.

(3.) In the instant case also, though the Inquiry Officer found that the charges are not proved by the applicant, however, Disciplinary Authority did not agree to it and served a disagreement note to the applicant. A bare reading of the disagreement note makes it clear that the reasons recorded by the Disciplinary Authority are almost similar to the reasons recorded in the case of Vishwas Nimgaonkar (supra), which has already been dealt by us by setting aside the same. Therefore, in our view the dissenting note sent to the applicant as well as the subsequent proceedings based thereon are also liable to be set aside.