Disciplinary proceedings are vitiated when a missing employee is never actually served with the charge-sheet.

The applicant’s husband, a Railway employee, was charged with financial irregularities involving an alleged shortage or misuse of ₹55,509. He went missing in 1999; his wife later lodged an FIR, but the police could not trace him.

The Railway Administration proceeded ex parte and removed him from service by order dated 24 August 2004. His wife challenged the proceedings and sought settlement and pensionary benefits, as well as compassionate appointment for their son.

The Tribunal considered the alleged defects in the inquiry, the Railway Board’s instructions concerning missing employees, and the respondents’ limitation objection.

1. Whether the ex parte disciplinary proceedings and resulting removal could stand where the employee was missing and the charge-sheet and inquiry communications had not been served on him.

2. Whether the applicant was entitled to settlement dues and family pension under the Railway Board instructions concerning genuinely missing employees.

3. Whether the employee’s son was entitled to compassionate appointment under the instructions applicable to missing Railway employees.

The Tribunal relied on Union of India v. Dinanath Shantaram Karekar, 1998 (7) SCC 569, for the rule that actual service of a charge-sheet and show-cause notice is essential where the employee must respond and participate; without such service, the disciplinary proceedings are vitiated.

Railway Board Letter No. E(D&A)91RG6-41 dated 22 August 1991 (RBE No. 150/91) provides that where an employee is established to be genuinely missing rather than unauthorisedly absent, disciplinary action founded on that absence should be annulled and consequential benefits considered for the family.

RBE No. 164/98 permits consideration of compassionate appointment in qualifying missing-employee cases, subject to prescribed conditions, but excludes cases where the employee is suspected of fraud.

The Tribunal also referred to Section 108 of the Indian Evidence Act in reproducing the context for the 1991 instruction.

The Tribunal found that the Railway Administration knew the employee was missing, and the inquiry reports themselves recorded his absence or disappearance. The charge-sheet and inquiry communications had not been received by him; the inquiry proceeded ex parte, and the Tribunal also noted procedural shortcomings, including that an inquiry officer was a witness and that the charge-sheet had been issued by an allegedly incompetent person.

Applying Dinanath Shantaram Karekar, it held that the absence of actual service vitiated the proceedings.

Given the evidence that the employee was missing, the case should have been processed under the 1991 Railway Board instruction rather than concluded through the defective disciplinary process.

However, the alleged financial irregularities brought the case within the fraud-related exclusion in RBE No. 164/98, so compassionate appointment was not made out.

It declined to grant compassionate appointment because the employee had been proceeded against for alleged financial irregularities and the applicable instructions excluded cases involving suspected fraud.

The Original Application was disposed of without an order as to costs.