Punjab National Bank Of India vs Gour Gopal Mondal & Ors
2021 Latest Caselaw 215 Cal

18.01.2021
Item No. 11
Ct. No. 04
PG
                               F.M.A. 1689 of 2018
                                       with
                             I.A. No. CAN 2 of 2020
                              (Via Video Conference)
                                           r




                          Punjab National Bank of India
                                        Vs.
                            Gour Gopal Mondal & Ors.


              Mr. R.N. Majumder.......for appellant

              Mr.   Debabrata Saha Roy
              Mr.   Indranath Mitra
              Mr.   Subhankar Das
              Mr.   Neil Basu............for respondent no. 1/

writ petitioner

Mr. Majumder, learned advocate appears on

behalf of appellant and draws attention to impugned

judgment dated 2nd August, 2017. First he places the

following paragraph extracted therefrom:

"....This is also a case where there is

no evidence to establish the charges framed

against the petitioner. Thus, it is a case of

perverse finding. The enquiry officer could not

appreciate the well drawn distinction between

mere identification of documents and proof of

their contents. Description of what a document

contains is no proof of its content which may

establish a charge against the petitioner."

He then wants to place the entire judgment.

On query from Court Mr. Saha Roy, learned

advocate appearing on behalf of respondent/writ

petitioner submits, impugned judgment should be

confirmed for correct finding of perversity, to set aside

the disciplinary proceeding. It would appear from

pages 61 to 66 that documents marked Management

Exhibits (ME) were only identified by Management

Witness (MW) but not proved. Then Enquiry Officer

(EO) tendered MW to Presenting Officer (PO) for cross

examination! It will also appear from those pages that

PO had put two questions to his client being

Chargesheeted Officer (CSO), the latter not being a

witness.

Respondent/writ petitioner will demonstrate

applicable rules of proceeding regarding tendering

documents and examination of witnesses. What we

find is the documents were taken on record as ME

and DE.

Respondent/writ petitioner is also to

demonstrate that pursuant to disclosure of

documents, they or some of them were disputed, as

informed to appellant. This is necessary because we

understand there could have been absence of cross-

examination regarding disputed documents, on

strategy that they had not been proved. However, to

accept the situation we must satisfy ourselves that

appellant was not given to think that the documents

are not disputed. On ascertaining the same, we shall

proceed to analyse examination of MW as appearing

from pages 61 to 66, as well as procedural errors

alleged to have been committed by EO.

List on 25th January, 2021.

(Arindam Sinha, J.)

(Suvra Ghosh, J.)