The Division Bench of the Delhi High Court in the case of Jitinder Tiwari vs Union of India & Ors. consisting of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad reiterated that the High Court in exercise of its powers under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India, shall not venture into reappreciation of the evidence and can only see the procedural irregularities/violation of principles of natural justice and fair play or whether the findings are based on no evidence.
Facts
The Petitioner filed this petition being aggrieved by the Order passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) by which the Original Application challenging the order of punishment and the order rejecting the appeal was dismissed. The petitioner who, at the relevant point of time was serving as Sub Inspector of Police was subjected to disciplinary proceedings along with another. Based upon a complaint, a charge sheet was issued. The petitioner as well as another denied the charges. They preferred an appeal in the matter which was dismissed. They also filed an Original Application before the Tribunal. It is only the petitioner who challenged the order of punishment whereas the co-charged official did not prefer any writ petition before this Court.
Contentions Made
Petitioner: The disciplinary authority as well as the CAT has committed material irregularity and illegality by inflicting the punishment and by upholding the punishment order and the evidence and facts in their true perspective have not been considered.
Observations of the Court
The Bench, after perusing the Tribunal’s order, noted that the same had minutely scanned the evidence on record and arrived at a conclusion that no case for interference is made out in the matter.
It was also noted that the scope of judicial interference in departmental enquiry is very limited. However, as it was pleaded before the Court that this was a case of no evidence and the finding arrived at by Inquiry Officer were perverse in nature, the Court perused the entire evidence on record.
Relying on Apparel Export Promotion Council v. A.K. Chopra it was reiterated that once findings of facts, based upon appreciation of evidence is recorded, the High Court in writ jurisdiction may not normally interfere with those factual findings of facts unless findings recorded are based on no evidence or are wholly perverse and/or legally untenable. In this case, the findings recorded were based upon evidence and not at all perverse, so, the question of interference by this Court did not arise.
A plethora of cases were referred to where the scope of interference in a departmental enquiry was dealt with by the Hon’ble Supreme Court and it was observed that the question of interference, as per the parameters laid down by the Supreme Court, does not arise.
Judgment
The Bench concluded that the question of interference with the order of punishment, the order rejecting the appeal and the order passed by the CAT did not arise. So, the writ petition was dismissed accordingly.
Case: Jitinder Tiwari vs Union of India & Ors.
Citation: W.P.(C) 5785/2013
Bench: Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, Justice Subramonium Prasad
Decided on: 8th August 2022
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