Allahabad HC Upholds Quashing Of Postal Assistant’s Second Retirement Show-Cause Notice, Issued While First Penalty-Enhancement Notice Was Pending

The respondent, a Postal Assistant, was exonerated in two departmental inquiries arising from allegations of embezzlement, but in a separate proceeding received a penalty of stoppage of increment for two years and six months, which he accepted and did not challenge.

The Director of Postal Services then issued a show-cause notice under Rule 27 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965, proposing an enhanced penalty. Before deciding the respondent’s reply, the Director issued a second notice under Rule 29 proposing compulsory retirement, referring to the first notice and the respondent’s reply to it.

The respondent challenged the second notice before the Central Administrative Tribunal. After the Tribunal stayed it, the first notice was dropped; the Tribunal ultimately set aside the second notice. The Union of India challenged that decision, arguing, among other things, that the OA was premature under Section 20 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985.

Section 20 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 ordinarily requires exhaustion of remedies available under the relevant service rules before an OA is admitted; however, the exhaustion principle does not bar a challenge where the complaint is that the impugned action is without jurisdiction or otherwise unlawful, and a response to a show-cause notice is not, by itself, an alternative statutory remedy.

Rule 29 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 empowers the competent authority to review and enhance a penalty, while Rule 27 concerns appeals.

A show-cause notice may be challenged where it is without authority or jurisdiction, notwithstanding the general rule against premature challenges to such notices, as reflected in State of U.P. v. Brahm Datt Sharma, Union of India v. Kunisetty Satyanarayana and S.S. Rathore v. State of M.P.

The Court found that the second notice was not an independent exercise of Rule 29: it expressly relied on the first notice and the respondent’s reply to it, while no decision had been made on that reply.

The first notice remained in existence when the second was issued and when the Tribunal stayed the second notice; it was dropped only afterward, without reasons and without reference to the second notice.

In these circumstances, the respondent could challenge the second notice as allegedly beyond the authority’s power, and neither his reply nor Section 20 barred the OA.

The Court held that issuing the second notice while the first-notice proceedings remained pending lacked statutory sanction and was contrary to the scheme of the Rules.

It found no ground to interfere with the Tribunal’s order setting aside the notice and dismissed the Union of India’s writ petition.