Central Administrative Tribunal - Delhi
Charanjit Singh vs Union Of India Through The Secretary on 5 July, 2012
Central Administrative Tribunal Principal Bench OA No.3145/2011 Order reserved on: 03.07.2012 Order pronounced on:05.07.2012 Honble Mr. M.L. Chauhan, Member (J) Honble Mrs. Manjulika Gautam, Member (A) Charanjit Singh, Superintendent (Retd.), Son of Late Shri Pyara Singh, C/o b-6/35, Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi-110029. -Applicant (By Advocate Shri Manish Chauhan for Shri S.S. Duggal, Advocate) -Versus- 1. Union of India through the Secretary, Ministry of Finance, North Block, New Delhi-110001. 2. Chairman, Central Board of Excise and Customs, North Block, New Delhi-110 011. 3. Directorate General of Vigilance, Custom & Central Excise, 2nd Floor, Hotel Samrat, Chanakya Puri, New Delhi-110021. -Respondents (By Advocate Shri Harpreet Singh for Shri Rajeev Kumar, Advocate) O R D E R Mr. M.L. Chauhan, Member (J):
The applicant has filed this OA, thereby praying for the following reliefs:
a. This Honble tribunal may graciously be pleased to quash and set aside the impugned Memorandum of Charge Sheet dated 18/03/2011 being Annexure A-1 hereto, with all consequential benefits.
b. This Honble tribunal may be pleased to direct the Respondent No.4 to finalise and make payments of gratuity, full leave encashment, and all other dues and terminal benefits, permissible under the law, to the Applicant within such period as this Honble Tribunal may deem fit and proper.
c. This Honble Tribunal may further be pleased to direct the Respondents to pay the interests for the delayed payments from the date of retirement i.e., w.e.f. 29/04/2011 at such rates as this Honble Tribunal may deem fit and proper.
d. Cost of the Application be provided for.
2. Briefly stated, facts of the case are that a charge-sheet has been issued against the applicant before his retirement vide Memorandum dated 18.03.2011, whereby allegations against the applicant are that the applicant along with Shri S.K. Pandey, Superintendent, Service Tax, Mumbai, had unauthorizedly carried out the scrutiny of records in the guise of Service Tax audit in respect of assessee viz. M/s. Kino Sign Trucks Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai on 10th, 11th, 12th of July, 2007, without any prior intimation about the said audit to the assessee and had also certified on the Form No.ST-3 to the effect that the audit for the period up to March 2007 was conducted by Group A audit team. Thus, the applicant has shown disrespect and defied the administrative guidelines/instructions contained in the Audit Manual. The further charge against the applicant was that he along with Shri S.K. Pandey, Superintendent failed to call back the ST-3 form of M/s Kino Sign Trucks Pvt. Ltd. which he claimed to have been endorsed inadvertently and to cancel the erroneous endorsement in the same. The challenge to the aforesaid charge-sheet has been made on the ground that it is a purely administrative and technical act and no misconduct is made out and also that applicant had been consistently raising the issue of illegal and unjustified refund claims of M/s Reliance Infocom, running into thousands of crores of rupees being settled in their favour on extraneous reasons and considerations.
3. Respondents have filed a reply, thereby controverting the stand taken by the applicant.
4. We have heard the learned counsel of the applicant. We are of the view that at this stage we cannot go into the merits of the case, as the scope of interference at this stage is very very limited.
5. At this stage we wish to reproduce the decision of the Apex Court in Union of India v. Upendra Singh, (1994) 3 SCC 357 wherein the Apex Court in paras-6 & 7 held as under:
6. In the case of charges framed in a disciplinary inquiry the tribunal or court can interfere only if on the charges framed (read with imputation or particulars of the charges, if any) no misconduct or other irregularity alleged can be said to have been made out or the charges framed are contrary to any law. At this stage, the tribunal has no jurisdiction to go into the correctness or truth of the charges. The tribunal cannot take over the functions of the disciplinary authority. The truth or otherwise of the charges is a matter for the disciplinary authority to go into. Indeed, even after the conclusion of the disciplinary proceedings, if the matter comes to court or tribunal, they have no jurisdiction to look into the truth of the charges or into the correctness of the findings recorded by the disciplinary authority or the appellate authority as the case may be. The function of the court/tribunal is one of judicial review, the parameters of which are repeatedly laid down by this court. It would be sufficient to quote the decision in H.B. Gandhi, Excise and Taxation Officer-cum-Assessing Authority, Karnal v. Gopi Nath & Sons . The bench comprising M.N. Venkatachaliah, J. (as he then was) and A.M. Ahmadi, J., affirmed the principle thus :
"Judicial review, it is trite, is not directed against the decision but is confined to the decision-making process. Judicial review cannot extend to the examination of the correctness or reasonableness of a decision as a matter of fact. The purpose of judicial review is to ensure that the individual receives fair treatment and not to ensure that the authority after according fair treatment reaches, on a matter which it is authorised by law to decide, a conclusion which is correct in the eyes of the court. Judicial review is not an appeal from a decision but a review of the manner in which the decision is made. It will be erroneous to think that the court sits in judgment not only on the correctness of the decision making process but also on the correctness of the decision itself.
7. Now, if a court cannot interfere with the truth or correctness of the charges even in a proceeding against the final order, it is ununderstandable how can that be done by the tribunal at the stage of framing of charges? In this case, the tribunal has held that the charges are not sustainable (the finding that no culpability is alleged and no corrupt motive attributed), not on the basis of the articles of charges and the statement of imputations but mainly on the basis of the material produced by the respondent before it, as we shall presently indicate.
6. The aforesaid view has also been reiterated by the Apex Court in the case of State of Orissa & Anr. V. Sangram Keshari Mishra & Ors., (2011) 1 SCC (L&S) 380. Thus, in view of the law laid down by the Apex Court in Upendra Singh (supra) and as reiterated in V. Sangram Keshari Mishra (supra), we are of the view that no interference at this stage is warranted.
7. We wish to observe that since the applicant has retired from service, it is expected that the enquiry proceedings against the applicant shall be completed expeditiously and for that purpose the applicant shall also render full cooperation to the enquiry officer.
8. With these observations OA stands disposed of, but without any order as to costs.
(Manjulika Gautam) (M.L. Chauhan) Member (A) Member (J) San.