New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said public employers were needed only to demonstrate the “preponderance of probabilities” to establish misconduct during the disciplinary proceedings to dismiss errant employee, a less stringent standard than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” burden required in criminal trials.
A bench comprising Justices J K Maheshwari and Sandeep Mehta, in a judgement delivered on February 4, set aside a 2012 judgment of the Calcutta High Court’s division bench that overturned the dismissal of Pradip Kumar Banerjee, a former assistant engineer (civil) with the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
The top court upheld the dismissal of a former AAI engineer despite his acquittal in the related criminal case, saying unlike criminal trials, where cases have to be proved beyond reasonable doubt, the burden in a related disciplinary enquiry was limited.
The significant verdict could be a shot in the arm of public employers which can dismiss employees from services in pursuance of the disciplinary proceedings even if the employees are acquitted in consequential criminal cases.
The bench ruled in favour of the AAI holding that the disciplinary action against Banerjee was justified.
“It is a settled principle of law that the burden laid upon the prosecution in a criminal trial is to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt. However, in a disciplinary enquiry, the burden upon the department is limited and it is required to prove its case on the principle of preponderance of probabilities,” said a 28-page verdict authored by Justice Mehta.
It said the high court division bench fell into “grave error in substituting the standard of proof required in a criminal trial vis-a-vis the disciplinary enquiry conducted by the employer”.
Banerjee was arrested along with a colleague, a junior engineer at AAI, on allegations of accepting illegal gratification from a contractor’s representative.
The CBI filed an FIR under IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act following which a special court held Banerjee guilty and acquitted the junior engineer.
Banerjee was dismissed from service by the disciplinary authority on July 13, 2000, based on his conviction.
A series of litigations were pursued in the high court.
The AAI moved the top court against the March 1, 2012 verdict of the high court in an intra-court appeal.
The division bench had allowed the appeal filed by Banerjee and set aside the order passed by the single judge upholding his dismissal from the service.
The single judge, on June 29, 2011, upheld the punishment of dismissal from service imposed upon Banerjee by the disciplinary authority and subsequently confirmed by the sub-committee while acting as the Appellate Authority.
The top court said the single judge while dealing with the petition of Banerjee, considered the entire factual matrix in detail and dismissed the plea by “detailed and well-reasoned judgment”.
“The position is, thus, settled that in an intra-court writ appeal, the appellate court must restrain itself and the interference into the judgment passed by the learned single judge is permissible only if the judgment of the learned single judge is perverse or suffers from an error apparent in law,” said the top court.
It, however, said the division bench “failed to record any such finding” and instead proceeded to delve into extensive re-appreciation of evidence to overturn the judgment of the single judge.
