Court No. - 29
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 17835 of 2017 Petitioner :- Rakesh Kumar Singh Respondent :- Union Of India And 3 Ors.
Counsel for Petitioner :- P.K. Upadhyay,Sanjay Kumar Mishra Counsel for Respondent :- Satish Chaturvedi,Satish Chaturvedi,Shahid Ali Siddiqui
Hon'ble Pankaj Mithal,J. Hon'ble Prakash Padia,J.
Heard Sri P.K. Upadhyay, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Satish Chaturvedi, learned counsel for Union of India.
The petitioner is questioning the order dated 16.02.2017 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal dismissing his Original Application against the punishment imposed upon him.
The petitioner was working on the post of Assistant Accounts Officer (Group-B Gazetted post) in the Office of the Accountant General. The Accountant General exercising his power as Disciplinary Authority vide order dated 01.04.2015 imposed a major penalty of reduction to a lower post of Accountant for 5 years in pay-band of Rs. (5200-20200) with original pay of Rs. 850 per month, GP- 2800 with further direction that he will not get annual increments of the pay during the period of reduction and reduction will have the effect of postponing future increments of his pay and that in the list of Seniority of Accountants, his name will be shown as senior-most and after the period of penalty he will restore his original seniority in the cadre of Senior Accounts Officer. The period of suspension will be considered as service on leave and he will be entitled to pay allowances for the said period only to the extent of subsistence allowance.
This order in departmental appeal was not disturbed. Therefore, petitioner preferred Original Application before the Tribunal.
The Tribunal dealt with all the 4 contentions raised by the petitioner so as to challenge the punishment order and has found no substance in any of them.
We do not find any error or illegality on the part of the Tribunal in dealing with the above points as raised by the petitioner and in turning them down.
The petitioner, herein this petition, has raised an additional argument that the penalty imposed upon him is too excessive looking to the charges which were levelled and found to be proved against him.
The submission is that the Disciplinary Authority in passing the punishment order observed that all the charges have been proved whereas in fact charge Nos. 1 and 6 were partly proved, charge Nos. 5 and 7 were not proved and that only charge Nos. 2, 3 and 4 were found to be proved.
Even assuming that there is some discrepancy in the order of the Disciplinary Authority in mentioning that all the charges have been proved against the petitioner, nonetheless as it is an admitted position that charge Nos. 2, 3 and 4 were fully proved and charge Nos. 1 and 6 were partly proved, we are of the opinion that the punishment imposed is not shockingly disproportionate to the charges which were proved against the petitioner and as such do not deserve to be interfered with by us in exercise of extraordinary jurisdiction.
Accordingly, we find no merit in this petition and the same is dismissed.
Order Date :- 29.4.2019 Nirmal