PRASANNA KUMAR AGARWAL Vs. STATE BANK OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE legality of the disciplinary proceedings conducted against the petitioner and the major penalty in the form of reduction to one stage lower in his time scale of pay for a period of two years with further direction of withholding his increment of pay during the period of such reduction having the effect of postponing his future increment of pay, even after the expiry of such reduction, is called into question in this writ petition.

(2.) MR. V. K. Jindal, the learned senior counsel for the petitioner and Mr. S. S. Sarmah, the learned senior counsel for the respondent-Bank have been extensively heard by me.

(3.) THE material facts giving rise to this writ petition are that the petitioner was appointed as Part Time Medical Officer sometime in the year 1983 and was posted at the Regional Office of the respondent-Bank, Shillong and that on or about 30. 1. 1987, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI for short) registered a criminal case against him on the ground that he and the Deputy General Manager of the Bank had entered into a criminal conspiracy and cheated the Bank to the order of Rs. 1,89,850. 70 p. over the purchase of medicines for the Bank's Clinic/dispensary in 1984. The petitioner was then placed under suspension on 17. 11. 1989. Against this suspension, the petitioner instituted a civil suit being Title Suit No. 155 (H) 89 challenging his suspension order and managed to obtain an interim injunction against the suspension order, but the suit came to be dismissed on 24. 7. 92 in default of prosecution even before he got his suspension order revoked by the Bank. Undaunted, he kept on requesting the Bank to revoke the suspension, but he refused to do so. After sixteen years of the incident, which is the subject matter of the criminal case, the respondent No. 6 on 26. 4. 2000 issued the charge sheet against the petitioner, who denied all the charges by submitting his reply. The petitioner again filed a writ petition being W. P. (C) No. 262 (SH) 2000 challenging his suspension order, which was quashed by the learned Single Judge of this Court by the judgment and order dated 1. 6. 2001 by directing the Bank to reinstate him to his post. The respondent-Bank complied with the order of this Court and accordingly allowed the petitioner to resume his duty on 7. 6. 2001. The respondent-Bank, however, preferred Writ Appeal No. 10 (SH) 2001 from the said judgment of the learned Single Judge, and the same was quashed by the Division Bench of this Court by the judgment and order dated 18. 3. 2002 by giving the liberty to the Bank to pass fresh orders in accordance with law. Even so, the Division Bench directed the Bank to conclude the enquiry within six months from the date of the first sitting held by the Enquiry Officer.