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No Relief For Rogue Employees Found Guilty In Disciplinary Proceedings

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-01-04 08:56:27

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

The Supreme Court made a clear distinction between departmental inquiry and criminal trial of an employee and categorically stated that acquittal in a criminal case does not mean that the department has to take back the dismissed employee. The court said that “ as per the cardinal principle of law, an acquittal in a criminal trial has no bearing or relevance on the disciplinary proceedings as the standard of proof in both cases are different and the proceedings operate in different fields and with different objectives”.

The case pertained to a bus driver with the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) who was involved in an accident that killed four persons. The departmental disciplinary proceedings against him took his past record into consideration and found him guilty of rash and negligent driving leading to the accident. His service record for his three years in employment showed that he had been punished four times. Hence, he was dismissed forthwith.

Aggrieved by this, the driver approached the labor court which upheld the MSRTC order of dismissal. However, the industrial court overturned the labor court order and ordered his reinstatement. When the MSRTC approached the Bombay HC, the high court not only upheld the industrial court order but asked the body to pay him back wages. MSRCT then approached the Supreme Court.

The apex court ruled that the driver cannot be reinstated and set aside the orders of the industrial court and the Bombay HC. It said that they neglected to take his service record into consideration and the fact that he was acquitted in the criminal case of the accident due to lack of clinching evidence was no factor to overlook the findings of the disciplinary proceedings.

This ruling is likely to have a major impact on dismissal of rogue employees who try and get relief from courts against dismissal by the orders of departmental inquiries. As the apex court ruled, since courts and internal departments work in different ways and the evidence produced before both is also evaluated on different parameters, courts should not neglect departmental findings and place more faith on acquittal in criminal cases to grant such relief.

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