Disciplinary inquiry cannot be reopened without a valid defect, and bona fide recourse to writ proceedings is not misconduct.

A disciplinary authority cannot discard an exonerating inquiry report and direct a fresh inquiry merely because it disagrees with the findings; a further inquiry is justified only where there is a legally sustainable defect such as a serious procedural irregularity or absence of a proper inquiry, and the fresh inquiry order was therefore unsustainable. The conduct rules also did not apply to penalise an officer for participating in a public interest writ petition and filing an affidavit alleging maladministration, because that conduct did not amount to prohibited criticism, improper vindication of official acts, or giving evidence in the sense covered by the rules, and the charges could not support disciplinary action.

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Issues: (i) whether the disciplinary authority could discard the enquiry officer's exonerating report and a fresh enquiry by a two-member board under Rule 8(3) of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969; (ii) whether the charges founded on the appellant's participation in a public interest writ petition and related affidavit disclosed violation of the All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968.

Issue (i): Whether the disciplinary authority could discard the enquiry officer's exonerating report and order a fresh enquiry by a two-member board under Rule 8(3) of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969.

Analysis: Rule 8 contemplates an inquiry into misconduct and permits appointment of either a single inquiring authority or a board, but the power does not extend to setting aside a completed inquiry merely because the disciplinary authority is dissatisfied with the report. A further inquiry is permissible only in limited situations such as a serious procedural defect or lack of a proper inquiry. The grounds recorded for rejecting the report were held untenable: the appellant admitted the underlying facts, the alleged procedural breaches were inapplicable on those facts, and the criticism that the report was cursory or that facts were not properly investigated did not justify abandoning the completed inquiry.

Conclusion: The fresh enquiry order was illegal and unsustainable, in favour of the appellant.

Issue (ii): Whether the charges founded on the appellant's participation in a public interest writ petition and related affidavit disclosed violation of the All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968.

Analysis: The alleged conduct did not amount to prohibited criticism of government policy, vindication of official acts in the press or before a court in the sense contemplated by Rule 17, or giving evidence in an inquiry within Rule 8. Participation in a judicial proceeding raising allegations of maladministration was not treated as unbecoming conduct merely because the State disapproved of the allegations. The Court held that the cited conduct rules had no real application to the admitted facts forming the basis of the charge-sheet.

Conclusion: The charges did not justify the disciplinary action, in favour of the appellant.

Final Conclusion: The impugned judgment and the disciplinary order were set aside, and the original application was allowed with costs.

Ratio Decidendi: A disciplinary authority cannot, absent a legally sustainable ground of defective inquiry, abandon a completed inquiry and order a fresh one merely because it disagrees with the exonerating report; nor can conduct rules be invoked to penalize bona fide resort to judicial remedies for alleging maladministration.

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