CCS CCA Rules| Disciplinary Authority Empowered To Inflict Minor Penalties Can Issue Charge-Sheet Even For Imposition Of Major Penalties: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has held that, under Central Civil Services (Classification, Control & Appeal) Rules, 1965, the Disciplinary Authority empowered to inflict minor penalties can issue a charge-sheet even for imposition of major penalties.

The Court was considering an Appeal against an order of the High Court by way of which it set-aside the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal wherein Disciplinary Proceedings against the Respondent was sustained.

The division bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma observed, "A plain reading of Rule 13(2) of the CCS CCA Rules specifies that a disciplinary authority competent under the rules may institute disciplinary proceedings”. When the aforementioned Rule is read with Rule 14 and Appendix 3 of the CCS CCA Rules, it is very clear that an authority empowered to inflict minor penalties (in the present case, the General Manager) can certainly issue a charge-sheet even for imposition of major penalties."

The Appellant was represented by Additional Solicitor General K.M. Nataraj while the Respondent was represented by Advocate-on-Record Punam Kumari.

Facts of the Case

The Respondent was an employee serving the Department of Telecommunication as Sub Divisional Engineer, Group ‘B’ and was posted at Karnataka LSA (Licensed Service Area) DOT, Bengaluru. He retired from the service after attaining the age of superannuation on May 2018. In 2003, the Respondent was subjected to prosecution by the Central Bureau of Investigation in two corruption cases and was convicted in both. The Criminal Appeals against them are pending as on date. Parallelly, disciplinary proceedings were instituted against the Respondent while he was working. Two charge-sheets were issued under Rule 14 of the Central Civil Services (Classification, Control & Appeal) Rules, 1965 relating to the trap case and the case in respect of possessing assets disproportionate to his known source of income, respectively.

The Respondent preferred as many as six cases before the Central Administrative Tribunal on the ground that the charge-sheets have been issued by an authority which is competent to inflict only minor penalties, therefore, as the charge-sheet has not been issued with the approval of the disciplinary authority empowered to inflict major penalty, the charge-sheet itself is void. Heavy reliance was placed on Supreme Court's decision in Union of India and Others Vs. B.V. Gopinath, (2014). The Tribunal dismissed the Application holding that the disciplinary authority empowered to inflict minor penalty can issue a charge-sheet even though it’s a charge-sheet under Rule 14 of the CCS CCA Rules for inflicting a major punishment, given that the punishment order will have to be passed by the disciplinary authority empowered to impose a major penalty.

The High Court in Appeal set aside the Tribunal's finding holding that in cases where a charge-sheet has been issued under Rule 14 of the CCS CCA Rules, by an authority empowered to inflict minor penalties, then the charge memo has to be approved by the authority which is competent to inflict major penalty.

Counsel for the Petitioner-Union of India vehemently argued that the reliance placed by the High Court upon the judgment delivered in B.V. Gopinath (supra) is misplaced and the statutory provisions governing the field empowers the disciplinary authority to issue a charge sheet in respect of major penalty even though the authority who has issued the charge-sheet was competent to inflict minor penalties only.

Reasoning By Court

The Court agreed with the Counsel for the Appellant and affirmed that a Disciplinary Authority empowered to an authority empowered to inflict minor penalties (in the present case, the General Manager) can certainly issue a charge-sheet even for imposition of major penalties.

".....initiation of disciplinary proceedings can be done by Member Telecommunications Commission as well as by General Manager, Telecommunication. In the present case, initiation has been done by the General Manager, Telecommunication and, therefore, in the light of the statutory provisions of the law, this Court is of the considered opinion that issuance of charge-sheet by General Manager, Telecommunication could not have been faulted upon by the High Court solely by placing reliance upon the judgment delivered by this Court in the case of B.V. Gopinath (supra)," the Court observed.-

The Appeal was accordingly allowed.

Cause Title: Union of India & Ors. vs. R. Shankarappa

Appearances:

Appellant- Additional Solicitor General K.M. Nataraj, Advocate Sharath Narayan Nambiar, Advocate Indira Bhakar, Advocate Vinayak Sharma, Advocate Vatsal Joshi, Advocate Anuj Srinivas Udupa, Advocate Chitransh Sharma, Advocate Satvika Thakur, Advocate Yogya Rajpurohit, Advocate Aayush Saklani, Advocate Nikita Capoor, Advocate Subramaniam, Advocate Sudarshan Lamba, Advocate Piyush Beriwal, Advocate Arkaj Kumar, Advocate Padmesh Mishra, Advocate Bani Dkshit, Advocate Shailesh Madiyal, Advocate Amrish Kumar

Respondent- Advocate-on-Record Punam Kumari, Advocate P.A. Kulkarni

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