Sangeeta Bajaj vs School Management Of Sri Guru ...
2013 Latest Caselaw 845 Del

*            IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

+                         W.P.(C) No.1092/2013

%                                                      February 20, 2013


SANGEETA BAJAJ                                            ..... Petitioner
                          Through:       Mr. Raj Kumar Sherawat, Advocate.


                          versus


SCHOOL MANAGEMENT OF SRI GURU NANAK PUBLIC SCHOOL
AND ANR.                               ..... Respondents

Through: Ms. Ferida Satarawala, Adv. for GNCTD.

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VALMIKI J.MEHTA

To be referred to the Reporter or not?

VALMIKI J. MEHTA, J (ORAL)

1. One notices a tendency, these days, that, in a number of cases

persons are approaching the Court to scuttle the enquiry proceedings which

are still pending pursuant to a charge sheet which is issued. Of course, each

case has to be seen on its own facts and in a particular case where the charge

sheet is issued without jurisdiction or the enquiry proceedings are grossly

malafide or lacking in some vital aspects, Courts can and do exercise

discretion to stay the enquiry proceedings, however, that does not mean that

ordinarily enquiry proceedings should be allowed to be scuttled at the initial

stage. Also may be in the past, the present petitioner may have been

harassed, however that cannot mean, and nor has the judgment of this Court

dated 18.7.2011 in C.M.(M) Nos.444/1998 and 446/1998, observe that in

case the petitioner is guilty of future misconduct, yet never any charge sheet

will be issued against the petitioner.

2. The charge sheet in the present case which is issued against the

petitioner is that as given at Annexure P1 from pages 22 to 33 of the paper

book. There are various articles of charges against the petitioner. With

respect to para 2 at page 2, and running page 24, names have been

mentioned of various students whose note books show negligence in the

correction of the work by the petitioner. These students are Karan Puri, Riya

Arora, Nidhi, Yash, Gurpreet Singh, Tanisha Garg, Anchita Kakaria,

Bhuvak, Dev Saluja and Jasleen Kaur. Other charges against the petitioner

include misconduct in non-compliance of orders of the school. There are

also charges of the petitioner defaming the school and being a non-serious

and non-dedicated teacher.

3. Of course, a reference to the charge sheet shows that indeed

there are some charges which are vague, however, equally there are charges

which are specific. The specific charges besides contained in para 2 of the

statement of allegations, are also contained in paragraph 3 wherein names of

other students i.e Zaheer Ansari, Mayank, Karan Puri and Riyanshu have

been mentioned. In Karan Puri's note book which is checked, he has

answered Bhutan as one of the State that lies in East of India and which is

taken as correct. With respect to English notebook of Zaheer Ansari, it was

noticed that the basic punctuation marks were missing and there were

various grammatical errors which were not corrected. In the English

notebook of Mayank, questions framed had been wrongly done by him but

was incorrectly examined. The charge sheet also mentions about the

petitioner calling police by dialling the number 100 whereby the police had

come and which is said to have defamed the school.

4. Counsel for the petitioner seeks to place reliance upon two

judgments. The first judgment is the judgment of the Supreme Court in the

case of Union of India and Ors. Vs. J. Ahmed AIR 1979 SC 1022. The

second judgment is the judgment of the learned Single Judge of the Calcutta

High Court in the case of Dr. A.K. Chakravarthy Vs. Jagannath Kishore

College and Ors. (1982) IILLJ 427 Cal.

5. A reference to the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of

J. Ahmed (supra) shows that the same does not pertain to grant of stay of

enquiry proceedings or staying of the charge sheet. The same deals with

what is or is not misconduct. Whether or not the petitioner is guilty of

misconduct in the facts of the present case is an issue of merits and not of

jurisdiction and issues of merits will have to be addressed by the petitioner

before the enquiry officer inasmuch as this Court is neither the enquiry

officer nor the disciplinary authority or for that matter, even the Delhi

School Tribunal where the orders of the disciplinary authority can be

challenged under the Delhi School Education Act, 1973.

6. So far as the judgment of the learned Single Judge of Calcutta

High Court in the case of Dr. A.K. Chakravarthy (supra), the said judgment

does stay the operation of the charge sheet, however, in the said case there

were found charges which showed existence of gross allegations of mind

being made up by the disciplinary committee, and there also existed gross

malafides of the disciplinary committee. There was also an issue of the

charge sheet not having been framed by the appropriate authority. It is in

these circumstances that in the case of Dr. A.K. Chakravarthy (supra) the

learned Single Judge of the Calcutta High Court stayed the operation of the

charge sheets. It is however to be seen that whether there exists such issues

in the present case on facts for the enquiry proceedings to be stayed.

7. In the present case, as already stated above, some charges

appear to be vague and possibly motivated against the petitioner, however, it

is not as if all the charges are such which can be found to be ex facie

misconceived for the enquiry proceedings to be stayed by the Court. It will

always be open to the petitioner to urge before the enquiry officer that there

exists bias or malafides in issuing the charge sheet because of previous

litigation of the petitioner with the school management, and in which

litigation petitioner had succeeded by getting reinstatement with all

consequential benefits, and which aspects will be duly considered by the

enquiry officer and the disciplinary committee.

8. Counsel for the petitioner states that pursuant to the earlier

order of reinstatement amounts have not been paid to the petitioner,

however, that admittedly is the subject matter of independent proceedings

which the petitioner has filed and I need not comment upon the same,

however, all these aspects of malafides and malice, if correct can be asserted

and proved by the petitioner before the enquiry officer.

9. Learned counsel for the petitioner finally argued that the charge

sheet dated 7.2.2013 has not been issued in accordance with Rules 118 and

120 of the Delhi School Education Rules, 1973 inasmuch as it has not been

issued by the disciplinary committee.

10. In this regard, the petitioner places reliance upon first two lines

of the charge sheet which state that the managing committee proposes to

hold an enquiry against the petitioners, however, when we refer to the

signature portion of the charge sheet it becomes clear that charge sheet is

signed by the member of the disciplinary committee on behalf of the

disciplinary committee. Therefore I cannot agree that mere existence of first

two lines in the memorandum of charge sheet of the managing committee

proposing to hold an enquiry will in any manner affect the charge sheet

which has been issued on behalf of the disciplinary committee. As a matter

of abundant caution however, in view of the possible inconsistency in the

memorandum of charge sheet dated 7.2.2013, I direct that the petitioner will

be entitled to raise these issues before the enquiry officer and the issue with

respect to the charge sheet being in compliance or non-compliance of Rules

118 and 120 will be decided by the enquiry officer/enquiry committee at the

outset.

11. Finally, I must note that merely because there is a history of

litigation so far as the petitioner is concerned cannot mean that it in itself

will show that there is absolutely no substance to any of the factual charges

made against the petitioner. There may be merits in some charges and there

may not be merits in some other charges, however, Courts are indeed wary

right at the inception, where there are factual aspects yet to be determined, to

stay the entire proceedings itself, even though the petitioner will be at

complete liberty in the enquiry proceedings to take all factual defences as

also other defences on merits including the defences of law.

12. In view of the above, the writ petition is dismissed, subject to

the above observations, leaving the parties to bear their own costs.

VALMIKI J. MEHTA, J FEBRUARY 20, 2013 ib/Ne