Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Ex. Ct/Gd Girver Singh vs Union Of India on 21 August, 2017
Bench: Madan B. Lokur, Deepak Gupta
1
ITEM NO.12 COURT NO.4 SECTION IV-B
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (C) No(s).35833-35834/2016
(Arising out of impugned final judgment and order dated 23-12-2015
in LPA No. 1826/2015 and 05-08-2016 in RA No. 14/2016 passed by the
High Court of Punjab & Haryana at Chandigarh)
EX. CT/GD GIRVER SINGH Petitioner(s)
VERSUS
UNION OF INDIA & ORS. Respondent(s)
Date : 21-08-2017 These petitions were called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MADAN B. LOKUR
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE DEEPAK GUPTA
For Petitioner(s) Mr. Nikhil Majithia, AOR
For Respondent(s) Mr. S.S. Shamsheri, Adv.
Ms. Rukhmini S. Bobde, Adv.
Mr. B.V. Balram Das, Adv.
Mr. B. Krishna Prasad, AOR
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
We have heard learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the judgment and order passed by the High Court in LPA No.1826 of 2015 as well as in the Review Application No.14 of 2016.
Signature Not VerifiedThe allegation against the petitioner was that while Digitally signed by SANJAY KUMAR Date: 2017.08.22 16:58:09 IST Reason: he was in a state of intoxication, he cocked and pointed a loaded rifle at his fellow personnel.
2On the basis of this, action was taken against the petitioner by holding a Summary Force Court Proceedings and thereafter the petitioner was dismissed from service on 10th October, 2002/12th October, 2002.
It is submitted by learned counsel for the petitioner, relying upon Section 82 of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force Act, 1992, that the proceedings shall be attended by two persons who shall be officers or subordinate officers or one of either and who shall not as such be sworn or affirmed.
Section 82 of the Act reads as follows:
“82. Summary Force Court. - (1) A Summary Force Court may be held by the commanding officer of any unit and be alone shall constitute the Court.
(2) The proceedings shall be attended throughout by two other persons who shall be officers or subordinate officers or one of either and who shall not as such, be sworn or affirmed.” It is submitted that one of the persons in attendance was Dr. V.V.Rao, CMO, TPT BN. However, we find from the proceedings held on 9th October, 2002 that Dr. V.V. Rao, CMP, TPT BN. was also a witness in the proceedings. As such, he cannot be said to be an independent person who was participating in the proceedings.
The entire purpose of Section 82 of the Act is to ensure that the proceedings are carried out in a fair manner without any prejudice to the accused person. In this case, the so-called independent person also happened 3 to be a witness and, therefore, it cannot be said that the proceedings were completely independent. Under the circumstances, we set aside the proceedings against the petitioner and also quash the dismissal order passed against him.
However, we leave it open to the concerned authorities to take appropriate action against the petitioner in accordance with law. The authorities will also take a decision with regard to the period when the petitioner was out of service from 10th October, 2002/12th October, 2002 until a final decision is taken. The special leave petitions stand disposed of.
(SANJAY KUMAR-I) (SHARDA KAPOOR)
AR-CUM-PS ASSISTANT REGISTRAR