RAM SURESH RAM Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition has been filed, being aggrieved by the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Patna Bench, Patna dated 13-3-2014, passed in O.A. No. 695/2012 filed by the applicant before it.

(2.) Heard Sri Dinu Kumar for the petitioner and Sri Sanjay Kumar, learned Assistant Solicitor General for the Union of India and with their consent, we are disposing of this writ petition at this stage itself.

(3.) The writ petitioner was Range Officer in the Central Excise Department. A departmental proceeding was initiated against him for major penalty in respect of his role in assessing and granting wrong refunds and then not seeking its repayment and/or not recovering refunds. In the departmental proceeding, the Enquiry Officer noted the facts in detail and came to a finding that none of the charges could be proved or established. The Enquiry Officer clearly found that the excise duty deposited by the manufacturer was in excess of the liability and thus was liable to be refunded as such. Having refunded, the audit objection was that it was wrongly refunded and a demand ought to have been raised in terms of Sec. 11A of the Central Excise Act (for short the Act). The Enquiry Officer found that the audit objection itself was much after the six months limitation as prescribed in Sec. 11A of the Act. The Enquiry Officer thus concluded that the petitioner was helpless in the matter and could not have sought to recover the alleged wrong refund. The Department then sought advice and opinion from the U.P.S.C. as is mandatory. U.P.S.C. also concurred with the Enquiry Officer 's report and was clearly of the opinion that the charges could not be established. However, while doing so, it observed that the officer-petitioner should have been more careful in the matter and the refund ought not to have been given to the manufacturer but to the person who had paid it or from whom the manufacturer had realised it. U.P.S.C., thus, found negligence on part of the petitioner. Having received the said advice, Department served the Enquiry Officer 's report with a note of dissent to the petitioner and part of the report of U.P.S.C. Petitioner protested. He sought that the report of the Enquiry Officer exonerating him be accepted in full and no action could be taken at all but the Disciplinary Authority rejected his explanation and imposed a penalty of withholding 30% pension for a period of 5 years for negligence in granting refund not to the buyer but to the seller/manufacturer. The Tribunal dismissed the application and hence this writ petition.