The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : No valid enquiry can be held on vague charges, says High Court

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Tamil Nadu

No valid enquiry can be held on vague charges, says High Court

K.T. Sangameswaran

Bench dismisses writ appeal preferred by State government

CHENNAI: Pointing out that in the view of overwhelming authority of judicial opinion, no valid enquiry can be held on vague charges, the Madras High Court has said that departmental enquiry initiated against a person will be bad from inception if it purports to proceed on such charges.

Dismissing a writ appeal preferred by the Tamil Nadu government, represented by the Secretary, Environment and Forest Department, and two others, challenging the order of a single Judge, the First Bench, comprising Chief Justice A.K.Ganguly and Justice F.M. Ibrahim Kalifulla, agreed with the single Judge who held that a person could not be kept under perpetual mental agony by authorities by not passing the final order on a departmental enquiry for seven years.

Some charges were levelled against M. Subramanian in May 1997 and a charge memo was issued in November next year. He submitted an explanation in February 1999. The enquiry officer filed his report in May 2000 and it was communicated to Mr. Subramanian three months later. Following this, he made a representation. Since then, the matter was kept pending with the authority and no final order was passed even when the writ petition was disposed of by a single Judge in August 2007.

The departmental enquiry was initiated against him just on the eve of his retirement and he was suspended from service on the date of his superannuation.

The Bench said no explanation was offered by the department explaining the delay in the matter of conclusion of the enquiry. The single Judge set aside the suspension and also the departmental proceedings in view of such inordinate delay.

The Bench said on a combined reading of the averments made in the stay petition and the grounds taken in the appeal, the court had to reach an inescapable conclusion that there was no reason for the delay in passing the final order. Apart from that, a look into the records would reveal that the charges framed against the person were vague. Based on such charges, no departmental proceeding could be held as nobody could defend such allegations.

The Judges said they did not think that ends of justice would permit them to interfere with the single Judge’s order. The departmental proceedings had been rightly quashed by the Judge and the Bench said it reiterated the same, may be on some other grounds.

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