Express judicial liberty permits fresh departmental inquiry from the stage where earlier proceedings were vitiated.

The petitioner, a retired employee of Chhattisgarh Gramin Bank, challenged the respondents’ order dated 20 July 2026 re-initiating departmental proceedings on the basis of the charge-sheet dated 14 December 2016.

The petitioner had earlier succeeded in WPS No. 6461 of 2025, decided on 22 June 2026, in which the earlier departmental orders were quashed and the respondents were granted liberty to initiate a fresh enquiry in accordance with law from the stage at which the proceedings had been vitiated, if so advised.

The petitioner contended that the fresh enquiry was impermissible, particularly because he had retired in 2019, the charges were old, and the same charge-sheet had already been quashed.

The respondents relied on the liberty granted in the earlier writ petition and defended the order as a lawful initiation of fresh proceedings.

Whether the respondents could re-initiate departmental enquiry against the petitioner on the basis of the same charge-sheet pursuant to the liberty granted in the earlier writ petition?

Whether the initiation of departmental proceedings after the petitioner’s retirement and several years after the original charge-sheet was illegal at the threshold?

Whether the impugned order dated 20 July 2026 was liable to be quashed for allegedly violating natural justice and the directions issued in the earlier writ petition?

where an earlier judicial order expressly grants liberty to the disciplinary authority to initiate a fresh departmental enquiry in accordance with law, such liberty may be acted upon from the stage at which the earlier proceedings were found to be vitiated.

An order merely initiating departmental proceedings is ordinarily not interfered with at the threshold, since the employee has an opportunity to raise all factual and legal defences before the Enquiry Officer.

The grant of consequential service benefits does not, by itself, bar disciplinary proceedings where the earlier judgment has expressly preserved the employer’s liberty to proceed.

No specific statutory provision or judicial precedent was cited in the order.

The Court found that the earlier order dated 22 June 2026 had not finally prohibited any further departmental action; rather, it had expressly permitted the respondents to initiate a fresh enquiry in accordance with law from the stage where the earlier proceedings were vitiated.

The impugned order dated 20 July 2026 was issued pursuant to that express liberty and was only an order initiating proceedings.

Consequently, the petitioner’s objections concerning retirement, delay, repetition of the charge-sheet, and natural justice were matters that could be raised before the Enquiry Officer and did not establish sufficient illegality at the initiation stage.

The Court also rejected the argument that the direction to grant consequential benefits precluded disciplinary action because that direction operated subject to the expressly preserved liberty to proceed departmentally.

The petitioner’s challenge to the order dated 20 July 2026 was rejected, and the writ petition was dismissed as devoid of merit.

No relief was granted to the petitioner.