Last Updated on July 19, 2020 by Satish Mishra
This is case digest on Judgment of Punjab Education Tribunal challenged before Punjab and Haryana High Court at Chandigarh wherein the proposal of management to dismiss was rejected by the Director Higher Education and same was upheld by the Education Tribunal Punjab at Mohali. Now the college management went in writ petition before high court chandigarh to assail the above order of Punjab Education Tribunal which was further dismissed on the reasoning Losing faith in the employee must be bonafide and there must be genuine apprehension of the employer that continuation of delinquent employee in service would be detrimental to the institution. Only because the Management wants to throw out an employee, for no valid rhyme or reason, is not a reason enough to be sustained in law.
The Managing Committee And Anr vs Chandigarh Administration And Anr on 2 April 2019
Petitioners
The Managing Committee, Shri Guru Gobind Singh College, Sector 26, Chandigarh & Anr.
Respondents
Chandigarh Administration & Ors.
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In the forenamed case, An appeal was filed by the Managing Committee of Shri Guru Gobind Singh College, Sector 26 Chandigarh before the Hon’ble High Court of Punjab and Haryana wherein the order dated 18.09.2012 passed by the Director Higher Education, refusing to dismiss respondent no.4 from service, which was was upheld by the Education Tribunal by order 02.05.2015, was challenged.
Facts of the Case
Respondent no. 4 joined as Principal of Shri Guru Gobind Singh College on 20.02.2004. The management, however, noticed a lack of supervision and negligence of duties on his part. An alleged bungling with funds, which ran in lakhs of rupees, occurred and the Executing Committee of the Sikh Educational Society, which is the governing body of Shri Guru Gobind Singh College, decided to take disciplinary action against respondent no. 4.
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Respondent no. 4 was served with 3 distinct charge-sheets, wherein he was alleged of embezzlement of funds, forging the record and indecent behaviour towards the staff. Respondent no. 4 denied all the charges however, the inquiry officers found the changes proved against respondent no. Accepting the findings of the inquiry reports, the competent authority proposed to dismiss respondent no. 4 from service. Proposal for the dismissal of respondent no.4 from service was sent to Director Higher Education(DHE), who is respondent no. 2 in the instant case, for mandatory approval in terms of Section 4 of the Punjab Affiliated Colleges(Security of Service of Employees) Act, 1974. Regardless of that, respondent no.2 disagreed with the proposal and rejected it by an order dated 18.09.2012. In the opinion of the DHE, the proposed punishment is not proportionate to the charges proved against respondent no. 4.
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Aggrieved by the order dated 18.09.2012 the petitioners filed a Writ Petition before the High Court. However, due to the constitution of Education Tribunal, the dispute was referred to the Tribunal for further adjudication. The Tribunal upheld the reasoning and conclusions arrived at by respondent no. 2 and dismissed the appeal of the petitioner by an order dated 02.05.2015.
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Discontented with the order of the Education Tribunal dated 02.05.2015 the petitioners filed the instant writ petition.
Contentions
Justifying the order dated 02.05.2015 respondent no. 2 submitted that according to Section 4 of the 1974 Act, dismissal or removal from service cannot be executed unless it is approved by the Director. The inquiry reports and records sent by the Enquiry Officer were thoroughly examined however on finding the proposal of dismissal disproportionate to the charges proved against respondent no. 4 the proposal of dismissal was rejected. It was further submitted by respondent no. 2 that it was well within the capacity of the Director Higher Education to agree or disagree with the proposal sent forth by the management.
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Respondent no. 4 asserted that he was simply a whistleblower and because of that he is being punished. He stated that after joining as Principal, he exposed the scam of embezzlement of funds and brought it to the notice of the Managing Committee and also lodged a complaint. He complained against one Amarjit Singh regarding his illegal activities. Irked with his complaint, he was transferred from the college, however, he filed a writ petition challenging the order of his transfer before the Hon’ble High Court of Punjab and Haryana and his transfer was stayed.
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It has also been stated that the enquiries were conducted in a biased manner. It was contended that the Director Higher Education has rightly appreciated the facts and material on record and due procedure as laid down in the Act of 1974 was followed. The object of the Act of 1974 is to protect the employees from exploitation and arbitrary victimization in the hands of the Management. It was further pointed out that the Director Higher Education, while passing the order dated18.09.2012, also took cognizance of the fact that the person involved in the forgery was booked and later convicted by a Criminal Court of law.
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On the contrary, the petitioners contended that while passing the order dated 18.09.2012 the Director Higher Education had exceeded his jurisdiction by taking into consideration certain materials which were not a part of the inquiry reports. The learned counsel for the petitioner maintained that respondent no. 4 acted in a manner that was detrimental to the interests of the college. It was indicated that respondent no. 4 was subjected to three different inquiry proceedings arising out of three separate charge sheets. Respondent no. was found guilty on all the charges by the Inquiry Officer and based on the reports submitted by the Inquiry officer the petitioner decided to dismiss respondent no. 4 from service.
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However, the Director Higher Education and the Education Tribunal failed to appreciate the gravity of the charges levelled against respondent no. 4 and wrongly rejected the proposal of dismissal of respondent no. 4 from service and once the Management lost confidence in respondent no. 4 his services cannot be forced upon the Management. The learned counsel relied upon Kanhaiyalal Agrawal Vs. The Factory Manager, Gwalior Sugar Co. Ltd.[1], Chairman-cum-MD, TNCS Corpn Ltd. Vs. K. Meerabai[2], Managing Committee, Khalsa Higher Sec School Batala Vs. State of Punjab & Ors.[3], B.C. Chaturvedi Vs. Union of India & Ors.[4]National Fertilizers Ltd. & Anr. Vs. P.K. Khanna,[5]and M/s Goodyear India Ltd. Vs. D.N. Trikha & Anr.[6] to strengthen his argument.
To sum things up the learned counsel for the petitioner contended that the order dated 18.09.2012 endorsed by the Director Higher Education to reject the proposed action of the petitioner to dismiss respondent no. 4 from service was illegal. And likewise, the order passed by respondent no. 2 was wrongly upheld by the Court of Additional District Judge.
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On the other hand, the counsel for the respondent contended that the departmental inquiry inferred that respondent no. 4 did not commit any embezzlement and it was entirely in the domain of respondent no. 2 to agree or disagree with the proposal sent by the Management. It was also submitted that the judgement dated 28.10.2003 of a competent criminal court held that the signatures on the cheques which the delinquency of embezzlement was attributed to respondent no. 4 were forged by one Rajnish Ranjan, who has apparently withdrawn the amount from the bank account of college and therefore respondent no. 4 cannot be held liable. It was also argued that the accounts of the college were never reconciled by the College Chartered Accountant and it was only after respondent no. 4 brought out the issue then only a special Chartered Accountant was appointed to conduct a special audit regarding the embezzlement.
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The audit report also furnished that embezzlement from the college funds was going on since 1997 and continued up to December 2005 when the Accounts Clerk, one Amarjit Singh, retired. It is an admitted fact that Amarjit Singh confessed to submitting fake deposit slips and was, therefore, ordered to make good the loss caused to the college, by respondent no. 4. When a cheque amounting to Rs. 10 lakhs bounced a complaint was made to the DIG, Economic Offences Wing, Chandigarh and since this too was prior to the joining of respondent no. 4, he cannot be held accountable for the same.
The question before the Hon’ble High Court was whether the DHE had the capacity to go into evidence and records of the case brought before him?
The High Court held that Section 3 of the 1974 Act clearly states that no punishment can be meted out to an employee without holding a proper inquiry where the offender is given a reasonable opportunity to refute the charges framed against him. Furthermore, Section 4 of the Act states that no employee can be removed or dismissed from service before the Director, Higher Education grants his approval for the same. Thus, on the perusal of Section 3 and 4 of the Act of 1974, it is quite evident that the DHE is empowered to go into the evidence and records of the case brought before him because if he does not exercise his powers under the 1974 Act that would be inconsistent with the settled law that an order passed by a competent authority must be duly reasoned and not arbitrary.
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As far as the illegality of the order passed by the Director, Higher Education which was upheld by the Education Tribunal, is concerned the Hon’ble High court observed that respondent no. 4 was never directly held responsible for any of the charges. He was held liable only to the extent of his negligence in performing his duties and the negligence in the performance of his duties was not so grave as to warrant his dismissal from service besides the persons responsible for the loss have already been penalized therefore the order passed by the DHE does not suffer from any illegality.
The Hon’ble Court also added that the judgements relied upon by the learned counsel for the petitioner are dissimilar in facts of the instant case. The Court pointed out that losing faith in the employee must be bonafide and there must be genuine apprehension of the employer that continuation of the delinquent employee in service would be detrimental to the institution. Just because the Management wants to throw out an employee, for no valid rhyme or reason, is not a reason enough to be sustained in law. The court maintained that the DHE has rightly appreciated the material on record and there was no involvement of respondent no. 4 in the alleged bungling of funds and therefore the proposed punishment was totally inappropriate to the proved charges.
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The Hon’ble Court after appreciating all the material on record held that there is no ground to interfere in the impugned order and in view of the above reasoning, the writ petition was dismissed with no order as to costs.
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This post is written by Aniket Rai. More on 99888-17966
[1] 2001 AIR(SC) 3645
[2] 2006(1) SCT 460
[3] 2004(3) RSJ 732
[4] 1996 AIR(SC) 484
[5] 2005 AIR (SC) 3742
[6] 2010(1) RSJ 163
