A minor penalty requires a departmental enquiry when the delinquent employee disputes factual charges.

The petitioner, a Mandi Inspector, was served with a charge-sheet dated 06.05.2012 alleging that, although he had deployed security guards pursuant to official directions and certified their attendance, he had failed to maintain a shift-wise deployment record.

The petitioner denied having received any instruction to maintain such a record, contending that the deployment record was maintained by the security agency’s Supervisor, that he had only verified the guards’ physical presence, and that no loss had been caused to the Mandi premises.

Without conducting a regular departmental enquiry, the respondents imposed the minor penalty of withholding two annual increments without cumulative effect by order dated 01.08.2012, which was affirmed in appeal on 05.09.2013.

The petitioner challenged both orders under Article 226 of the Constitution.

Whether a minor penalty could be imposed without a regular departmental enquiry where the employee specifically disputed the factual basis of the charge.

Whether the finding that the petitioner was duty-bound to maintain a shift-wise deployment record was sustainable when no relevant instruction or material had been disclosed or confronted to him.

Whether the impugned punishment orders violated the principles of natural justice and warranted interference under Article 226 of the Constitution.

The Court applied Article 226 of the Constitution, under which interference with disciplinary orders is limited but is permissible where the proceedings violate natural justice or the punishment is shockingly disproportionate.

Regulation 33 of the Raj Mandi Board Seva Viniyam, 1998 governed the disciplinary process for employees of the respondent Board.

Relying principally on O.K. Bhardwaj v. Union of India, (2001) 9 SCC 180, the Court held that even in proceedings involving a minor penalty, the delinquent employee must be given an opportunity to explain the charges; where factual allegations are specifically denied, an enquiry must ordinarily be conducted as a minimum requirement of natural justice.

The Court also recognised the general principle, relied upon by the respondent with reference to CISF v. Santosh Kumar Pandey, that the High Court does not ordinarily re-appreciate departmental evidence in writ jurisdiction.

The petitioner’s reply did not admit that he had been instructed to maintain a shift-wise deployment record; it only acknowledged that such a record had not been maintained and asserted that no such duty had been communicated to him.

This constituted a specific dispute regarding the factual foundation of the charge.

Under O.K. Bhardwaj, the respondents could not treat the matter as undisputed merely because the proposed punishment was minor; they were required either to establish the alleged duty through the relevant instruction or material and confront it to the petitioner, or to conduct an enquiry under Regulation 33.

Since no such instruction or material was shown to have been supplied or confronted, the authority’s conclusion that maintaining the record was the petitioner’s duty was unsupported and inconsistent with natural justice.

The Court therefore interfered not by re-appreciating evidence, but because the disciplinary determination lacked procedural fairness.

The finding of misconduct and the resulting penalty were unsustainable because the relevant instruction or supporting material had not been disclosed or confronted to the petitioner, violating the principles of natural justice.

The writ petition was allowed, and the penalty order dated 01.08.2012 and appellate order dated 05.09.2013 were quashed.