Unexplained Money Transfer By Itself Does Not Sustain A Bribery Charge: Delhi High Court Sets Aside Removal Of CWC Manager
The Court held that extreme penalties cannot rest on grave charges where findings of corruption are based on surmise without a rational evidentiary link.
Justice Sanjeev Narula, Delhi High Court
The Delhi High Court has set aside the removal of a Senior Assistant Manager (General) from the Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC), holding that while the preponderance of probabilities governs departmental inquiries, it does not authorise a leap from a mere suspicious bank transfer to a conclusive finding of bribery without identifying a specific official favor.
The Petitioner, in the matter, was served with three articles of charge on December 22, 2020 issued under Regulations 59 and 61 of the Central Warehousing Corporation (Staff) Regulations, 1986, where Article I alleged unauthorised labor deployment; Article II alleged he was found sleeping on duty and left his station without permission; and Article III alleged he received ₹75,000 as illegal gratification from a transport contractor. The Bench noted that with the corruption charge removed, only minor lapses remained, as Article I and II partly survived, and “sleeping on duty” was not proved.
Justice Sanjeev Narula noting that disciplinary authorities cannot allow a "silent hardening" of a weak or partly proved finding into a grave conclusion to justify a pre-determined punishment, observed, “…the inquiry report proceeds from that limited position to the conclusion that the transfer is a ‘clear case of bribery’. That leap is not a matter of appreciation of evidence in the ordinary or prudent sense. It is a matter of legal sufficiency of reasoning. Even on preponderance of probabilities, an unexplained or insufficiently explained transfer does partake the colour of bribe unless there is some rational evidentiary link between the receipt and the unlawful favour alleged in the charge. The report does not identify that link”.
“…the penalty of removal cannot be sustained. The case is not one of reappreciation of evidence, nor one in which every lapse must be erased; the difficulty lies in the foundation of the penalty itself. Once the corruption finding is found unsustainable, the extreme penalty cannot be allowed to founded on the lesser surviving lapses. The link between the findings and the punishment has broken down”, the Bench observed.
Advocate Prity Sharma and the petitioner appeared-in -person and Balendu Shekhar, CGSC appeared for the respondent.
The Inquiry Officer (IO) found Article I and the second part of Article II (absence) proved. Regarding Article III, the IO termed it partly proved, acknowledging a lack of evidence of any official favor but still labeling the bank transfer as bribery.
Based on these findings, the Disciplinary Authority imposed the penalty of removal from service in November 29, 2022, a decision later upheld by the Appellate Authority on September 18, 2023.
The Court found the conclusion on Article III to be legally unsustainable, noting that the IO moved from an unexplained transfer to a "clear case of bribery" without any evidence of demand or quid pro quo.
Regarding the "sleeping on duty" charge, the Court noted the Petitioner had provided medical justifications (back pain), making the charge an overstatement. The Bench concluded that since the removal was primarily colored by the unsustainable corruption charge, the penalty was "shocks the conscience" and could not be salvaged by minor procedural infractions.
Noting the inquiry report, in the tabulated portions, the Bench found that the conduct was described in a variety of ways: “lying on the bed”, “lying on the cot”, “sleeping on the cot”, “slept on the cot”, and “stayed in LWB”. Therefore, it observed, “‘Lying on a cot’ and ‘sleeping on duty’ are not the same thing, and the distinction becomes especially important because the Petitioner’s case throughout has been that he was suffering from back pain and would intermittently lie down to ease the discomfort. The defence material also refers to medical prescriptions. Further, as noted in the Petitioner’s representation, the witness material is not uniform in establishing sleep in the manner alleged…”, the Bench noted.
“There is one more feature of the case that cannot be ignored. The appellate decision was also expected to reflect due consideration of the grounds raised. The Executive Committee, however, confined itself to observing that the charges were serious in nature, that acceptance of gratification stood established, and that the points raised in appeal did not disclose any new or significant matter warranting interference. This approach is misconceived. An appeal is not to be rejected merely because it raises nothing ‘new’; its purpose is to test the correctness of the decision on the existing record. While the appellate authority is entitled to concur with the disciplinary authority, such concurrence must follow an independent application of mind”, the Bench noted.
The Court quashed the removal and appellate orders and directed the Petitioner’s reinstatement with continuity of service and seniority. The Bench granted the Respondents liberty to reconsider the penalty limited only to Article I and the unauthorised absence under Article II. Crucially, the Court prohibited any reopening of the corruption charge or the "sleeping on duty" allegation, directing that any fresh decision on punishment must be taken within eight weeks.
Cause Title: Rajesh Choudhary v. Union of India & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2026:DHC:3651)
Appearances:
Petitioner: Prity Sharma, Ashwini Kaushik, Petitioner appeared in person, Advocates.
Respondents: Balendu Shekhar, CGSC, Krishna Chaitanya, Rajkumar Maurya, Divyansh Singh Dev, Prabhas Bajaj, Rishabh Yadav and Harsh Chauhan, Advocates.