M. Sriramamurthy and another vs The Union of India

Chandra Reddy, C.J.—These two appeals are presented against the judgment of Srinivasan, J., dismissing the two writ petitions, W. P. Nos. 315 and 320 of 1962, refusing to quash the order of dismissal of the two appellants by the General Manager, Southern Railway, and affirmed by the Railway Board. The main charge against the appellant in W. A. No. 223 of 1964, the Assistant Station Master, and the Appellant in W. A. No. 253 of 1964, the Ticket Collector at Adoni station, at the relevant time was they collected the used tickets delivered at Adoni station with a view to re-sell them and thereby cause loss to the railway. The facts as emerge from the record are briefly these. On 24th December, 1957, a passenger was detected travelling without a ticket between Adoni and Kosgi. On search he was found to be in possession of a bundle of 16 third class tickets issued on that date. On being interrogated he made a statement that the Station Master sent him to Adoni to contact the ticket collector and bring a bundle of tickets from him. This incident led to the detection of this irregularity and in the framing of charges against the two appellants. They were called upon to offer their explanations within a given time. On receipt of their explanations denying the charges an enquiry was conducted by a committee of two officers deputed by the General Manager.

On the evidence before them they found that the chief charge was substantiated. Accordingly they submitted a report to the punishing authority finding both the appellants guilty as charged. Accepting the report of the enquiring officers the General Manager issued a second show cause notice to the appellants for their dismissal. Rejecting the explanation submitted by the appellants he dismissed them from service. The appellants carried appeals to the Railway Board unsuccessfully. They next moved this Court under Art. 226of the Constitution for setting aside the orders of dismissal. In support of their petitions three contentions Were raised before Srinivasan, J., who heard the matter, but none of them prevailed with the learned Judge with the result the petitions were dismissed.

In this appeal against their dismissal the Contention urged at the forefront is, as the evidence of the witnesses, upon which the conclusion of the enquiring officers was based, was not recorded by them in the presence of the appellants but the statements recorded during the preliminary enquiry in their absence were read out to the witnesses, the appellants could not be said to have been afforded a reasonable opportunity to defend themselves. What appears to have happened in this case was that the evidence given by the witnesses at the stage of the preliminary enquiry was read out to them and on their acknowledging them to be correct the appellants were permitted to cross-examine those witnesses. It is this procedure that is assailed by Sri Rama Rao as offending against Rule 1707 of the Indian Railway Establishment Code and also the principles of natural justice. It is complained that the procedure adopted by the enquiring officers amounted to a denial of reasonable opportunity to defend themselves. Reading over a statement given in the earlier proceedings to the witnesses and asking the charged officers to cross-examine them is not tantamount to recording evidence within the contemplation of Rule 1707 of the Railway Establishment Code or to giving a reasonable opportunity to the delinquent officers to meet the charges against them is the argument of Sri Rama Rao. In support of this contention, reliance is placed on two judgments of the Allahabad High Court in Ramesh Chandra Verma Vs. R.D. Verma and Others, and State of U. P. v. C. S. Sharma A. I. R. 1863 All 94 and of the Supreme Court in Kesoram Cotton Mills Ltd. Vs. Gangadhar and Others, and Khardah Co. Ltd. Vs. Their Workmen, .

We are not persuaded that these pronouncements lend much assistance to the appellants. The statement of law relied upon by the appellants in Ramesh Chandra Verma Vs. R.D. Verma and Others, is that if the statements of witnesses are to be relied upon by the enquiring officer who is in the position of a Judge in support of his findings in the disciplinary enquiry it is essential that these statements should be taken in the presence of the civil servant concerned. The facts of that case are quite dissimilar with the facts of the ease we are concerned with. In the cited case the statements were contained in letters written by the witnesses who were merely asked at enquiry whether those letters were written by them, and they were not even brought on record. It is in such a state that the learned Judge said that the principles of natural justice were violated by relying on those letters notwithstanding the fact that the charged officer was given an opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses. We therefore feel that ruling has no analogy here.

Nor the decision in State of U. P. v. C. S. Sharma A. I. R. 1863 All 94 is of much assistance to the appellants. It is true that there is a similar rule of law contained in this case. But we cannot ignore the fact that in the cited case, several of the statements did not bear any endorsement to the effect that they had been recorded by any responsible officer or that the statements had been made on oath and as such the learned Judges felt that there was no guarantee that the statements which the witnesses made before the first preliminary enquiry were the same which were read out to the witnesses when they were put up for cross-examination by the respondent before the enquiring officer. That is not the situation here. The correctness of the statements made by the witnesses was not challenged by the appellants. Moreover there are several features in the present case, which distinguish it from the rulings relied on by the appellants.

Nor do we think that the two pronouncements of the Supreme Court advance the case of the appellants. Both of them dealt with enquiries by domestic Tribunals. The persons affected by the orders passed by the management and which were sought to be quashed were illiterate workmen. It is in those circumstances that Wanchoo, J., who delivered the opinion of the Court in Kesoram Cotton v. Mills v. Gangadhar AIR 1864 S.C. 708 said that to read out a prepared statement of a witness in a few minutes and then ask the workmen to cross-examine the witness would make a mockery of the opportunity to be given to the workmen to defend himself as required by the rules of natural justice. That those observations are not of universal application is brought out in that judgment itself where his Lordship remarks (at page 715) :

the nature of the enquiry and status of the person against whom the enquiry is being held will have some bearing on what should be the minimum requirements of the rules of natural justice.

Surely the position of the Station Master and of the Ticket Collector in the present case cannot be equated to that of illiterate workmen. Further we will presently show that the present complaint is utterly devoid of substance.

In similar circumstances, in Khardah Co. Ltd. Vs. Their Workmen, , the Supreme Court held that reading the statements recorded earlier of a witness and asking the workmen to cross-examine that witness was not equivalent to giving the workmen a reasonable opportunity. It is plain that these rulings are not of much avail to the appellants in the present case.

It is pertinent to note here that in Kesoram Cotton Mills v. Gangadhar AIR 1864 S.C. 708, the learned Judges of the Supreme Court referred to the decision in State of Mysore Vs. S.S. Makapur, , wherein it was observed that when previous statements given by witnesses behind the back of the party were read over to them, marked on their admission, copies thereof given to the person charged and he is given an opportunity to cross-examine them there was sufficient compliance with the rules of natural justice.

It should be borne in mind that Tribunals exercising quasi-judicial functions are not Courts and therefore not bound by strict rules of evidence. They are entitled to obtain information relating to the charge "from all sources" and "through all channels". But the only principle of natural justice which they have to bear in mind is that they should not use any information against the charged officer without putting it to him and without giving him an opportunity to contradict it. The mere fact that the procedure indicated in any statute is not strictly followed would not amount to violation of rules of natural justice or to denial of reasonable opportunity. What is a reasonable opportunity has to be determined with reference to the facts and circumstances of each case and if in a given case it is found that the procedure followed has not in any way caused prejudice to the delinquent officer then it could not be postulated that he was deprived of a reasonable opportunity to defend himself.

We also feel that the provisions of Rule 1707 of the Railway Establishment Code Was substantially complied with. In this case it must be stated that the appellants cross-examined the witnesses at great length. They did not complain at the time of the enquiry that they were not in a position to cross-examine the witnesses, nor any request made for adjournment of the enquiry as to enable them to scrutinise the earlier statements for the purpose of cross-examination of the witnesses. We are not also shown that any grievance of this was made either in the explanations submitted by them in response to the second show cause notice or in the Memorandum of Appeal to the Railway Board. It is only for the first time in this Court that this point was raised.

More than all these, there are the endorsements made by the appellants on the proceedings that every facility was given to them to defend themselves and that they were quite satisfied with the enquiry. To a question put to the appellant in W. A. No. 253 of 1964, whether he was satisfied with the enquiry and whether he had been given full facilities to defend himself he says, "Yes, I have been given full facilities to defend myself". Similarly, the appellant in W. A. 223 of 1964 endorsed on the proceedings that he had been provided with all the facilities to defend himself and that he had been satisfied with enquiry. In the light of the circumstances, it is futile to try to make a grievance of the procedure adopted by the enquiring officers. We are convinced that the appellants were afforded a reasonable opportunity to defend themselves and no prejudice was caused to them by reading over the earlier statements to the witnesses and after their admitting them to be true allowing the accused officers to cross-examine the witnesses. We have therefore no hesitation in negativing these contentions.

It is next maintained that when one witness was being examined the other witnesses were being called in and simultaneously put some questions for the purpose of clarification of some point. It is pointed out by Srinivasan J.

A perusal of the record shows that what happened was that the principal witness P.W. 1 that is the ticketless traveller, from whose possession used tickets were seized, had to be called in order to establish the identity of the particular Adoni Ticket Collector from whom he secured the used tickets. It was for that purpose that P. W. 1 was called in and questioned. It is not therefore correct to say that the evidence was recorded haphazardly with the result that the petitioners were unable to know with any precision what the evidence was which led against them.

The appellants are not able to show that the statement of the learned Judge is not correct. In fact, the record seems to substantiate what the learned Judge has stated. Moreover, as observed earlier, no such complaint was made at the earlier stages and further the endorsements made by these officers clearly establish that nothing irregular was done in regard to the examination of the witnesses or that the appellants were in any way prejudiced thereby. No other point is taken in this appeal. In the result, we are driven to the conclusion that there are no merits in these appeals. The appeals are dismissed. No costs.