RAJESHWAR PRASAD SINGH Vs. JHARKHAND STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, who is Junior Engineer, has been proceeded de -partmentally on certain charges levelled against him. In the departmental inquiry, those charges were proved. The writ petition first came in this Court challenging the order of punishment on the ground of non -supply of the copy of the inquiry report. This Court held that the copy of inquiry report shall be given to the petitioner and a fresh decision shall be taken by the disciplinary authority. The disciplinary authority then again took a decision passing the impugned order of punishment. The petitioner then came to this Court by filing C.W.J.C. No. 1747 of 1999 which was disposed of on 28.4.2000 with a direction to the petitioner to prefer departmental appeal against the impugned order. Accordingly the petitioner preferred appeal and the appellate authority, after re -appreciating the inquiry report and other evidence, affirmed the order of punishment passed by the disciplinary authority. The punishments are withholding of increment, non -supply of any amount other than subsistence allowance and entry of the punishment in the A.C.R.

(2.) AS noticed above, the charges levelled against the petitioner have been proved in the departmental inquiry and a finding of fact has been recorded by the Enquiry Officer. In exercise of writ jurisdiction, finding of fact recorded in the inquiry cannot be re -appreciated. In this regard, reference may be made to the decision of Supreme Court in the case Bank of India and Another vs. Degala Suryanarayana, AIR 1999 SC 2407. It is equally well settled that there cannot be a judicial review against the order of punishment passed in a departmental inquiry unless the order is illogical and suffers from procedural impropriety or shocking the conscious of the Court. Reference may be made to the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Chairman and Managing Director, United Commercial Bank and Others vs. P.C. Kakkar, 2003 AIR SCW 944. This Court takes a judicial notice of the fact that it was only because of inaction of the Officers of the Electricity Board that crores and crores of rupees have not been recovered from the consumers, but it was only after the High Court issued directions for taking action against those officers several crores of rupees have been recovered by the same officers from the consumers. In my opinion, therefore, the punishment inflicted upon the petitioner on the charges of dereliction of duty cannot be ruled out. I, therefore, do not find any merit in this writ petition which is, accordingly, dismissed.