Prem Chand Sharma vs Union of India (UOI)

Pradeep Nandrajog, J.—Various grounds to challenge the inquiry held against the petitioner terminating in his being dismissed from service have been raised in the memorandum of the writ petition.

But notwithstanding various grounds urged in the memorandum of the writ petition, learned Counsel for the petitioner urges only one point; being that, the impugned order of dismissal from service having been passed by the Deputy Inspector General of Police, CRPF, Hyderabad is without jurisdiction and hence is illegal.

To make good the point, it is urged that in terms of Rule 27 of the CRPF Rules 1955, the Commandant of the Unit was the Disciplinary Authority of the petitioner who was working as a Constable, and hence the penalty could be imposed, if at all, by the Commandant. It is urged that the Service Rules envisage an appeal against the order passed by the Commandant before the Deputy Inspector General of Police. In a nutshell, the submission urged is that the appellate authority having usurped the power of the primary authority has resulted in a valuable right of the petitioner being infringed. The other facet of the submission is that the order of dismissal from service has been passed by a person having no authority to do so.

Conceding to the position that the disciplinary authority of the petitioner was the Commandant and that the order of dismissal from service has been passed by the DIG CRPF at Hyderabad, it is justified by the respondents that since the Commandant of the Battalion was on leave and report of inquiry was received, the next higher authority above the Commandant i.e. DIG CRPF passed the order in question.

It is no doubt true that under Rule 27 of the CRPF Rules, pertaining to Constables, the post held by the petitioner, the Disciplinary Authority is the Commandant. But, the question which needs to be adjudicated is: whether in the absence of the post of Commandant being manned due to the Commandant being on leave, could the next higher officer pass the order in question.

The issue is no longer res integra and stands concluded by a decision of the Supreme Court.

In the decision reported as A. Sudhakar Vs. Post Master General, Hyderabad and Another, . it was held that ordinarily a penalty should be imposed by the Disciplinary Authority, but there was no bar in law to the next higher authority being the appellate authority to impose the penalty in question, but subject to the condition that such exercise of power by the next higher authority should not deprive the right of appeal available under the statute in favour of the delinquent.

In the instant case, we note that the DIG CRPF was constrained to pass the order in question after disciplinary proceedings were concluded because there was no Commandant attached to the Battalion in question where the petitioner was posted.

We note that the right of appeal available to the petitioner has been retained intact. In that, an appeal was preferred to the Inspector General CRPF, which has been dismissed vide order dated 26th May, 1998.

It is thus apparent that the statutory right of appeal under the Rules which was available to the petitioner has not been taken away and has remained intact; in fact has been exercised by the petitioner.

We note that the reason for dismissing the appellant from service is that he gave false information to obtain leave and during his period of leave was involved in a murder case registered at P.S. Suraj Pur, Ghaziabad and was arrested by the local police and sent to jail.

It may be noted that the petitioner obtained leave by falsely informing that his father had died. The fact has been found to be false at the inquiry.

We further note that a charge memorandum listing out the articles of charge was duly served upon the appellant. A proper inquiry was conducted. Report of the inquiry officer was made available to the petitioner for his comments and only thereafter the order of dismissal from service was passed by the Deputy Inspector General CRPF.

Since the sole point urged at the hearing of the appeal stands settled against the petitioner in view of the decision in A. Sudhakars case (supra), we dismiss the writ petition.

No costs.