NDLI: Naresh Chandra Bhardwaj Vs. Bank of India & Ors.

Content Provider	Supreme Court of India
e-ISSN	30484839
Language	English
Access Restriction	NDLI
Subject Keyword	Removal from service conversion to compulsory retirement Quantum of punishment Scope of judicial review Service Law
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Law Judgement
Jurisdiction	India
Case(s) Referred	Referred Case 0 Referred Case 1
Case Type	Appeal
Court	Supreme Court of India
Disposal Nature	Appeal Allowed
Headnote	Service Law: Removal from service – Appellant-bank officer sanctioned three loans while posted in one branch and recommended two loans at another branch which were ultimately classified as Non-Performing Assets – When the process of granting these loans was scrutinised by the Bank, various procedural abnormalities were found, which were likely to cause a loss of Rs.70.32 lakhs to the Bank – Punishment of removal from service imposed on the appellant – Appellant prayed that, on parity, he should also be visited only with the punishment of compulsory retirement as there were two other cases of officers where also similar loss was caused on account of the same party and they were visited with the punishment of compulsory retirement – Held: Recommendation of the Chief Vigilance Officer showed that earlier the proposal was for removal from service for all the three officers – However, only in respect of other two officers, it was converted into compulsory retirement – The reason was stated to be the seriousness of the acts of misconduct of the appellant and the fact that he was the recommending authority in two cases and the sanctioning authority in three other cases – No mala fide was proved in case of the appellant – It was found that there was one key person who defrauded many organisations by proving his identity through different identity cards acquired by him fraudulently – There was no significant difference in the conduct of the three officers as would justify this differentiation in punishment – As per the counter affidavit submitted by the respondents-employer, in their own wisdom they had agreed to grant compassionate allowance to the appellant, ensuring that no financial loss is suffered by the appellant on account of removal from service – Appellant was given maximum benefit under the Pension Regulations 1995 dealing with compassionate allowance – Since there was no financial difference and the role was practically identical, there was no visible reason to not convert the punishment inflicted on the appellant from one of “removal from service” to “compulsory retirement” – In the said facts & circumstances, the plea of the appellant to convert his punishment to one of “compulsory retirement” is accepted.Administrative law: Judicial review – Quantum of punishment – Scope of judicial review – Held: The domain of the courts on the issue of quantum of punishment is very limited – It is the disciplinary authority or the appellate authority, which decides the nature of punishment keeping in mind the seriousness of the misconduct committed – However, if the punishment is so disproportionate that it shocks the conscience of the court, the courts are not denuded of the authority to interfere with the same – Normally, even in such cases, it may be appropriate to remit the matter back for consideration by the disciplinary/appellate authority – However, one other cause for interference can be where the plea raised is of parity in punishment but then the pre-requisite would be that the parity has to be in the nature of charges made and held against the delinquent employee and the conduct of the employee post the incident – Service law.Administrative law: Judicial review – Quantum of punishment – Principle of equality – When the concerned employee and codelinquent are equally placed – There has to be complete parity between the two not only in respect of nature of charge but subsequent conduct as well after the service of charge sheet in the two cases – If co-delinquent accepted the charges, indicating remorse with unqualified apology, lesser punishment to him would be justifiable.
Judge	Hon'ble Mr. Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul
Neutral Citation	2019 INSC 553
Petitioner	Naresh Chandra Bhardwaj
Respondent	Bank Of India & Ors.
SCR	[2019] 6 S.C.R. 240
Judgement Date	2019-04-22
Case Number	4037

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