Departmental enquiry beyond charges and non-supply of report can vitiate penalty, appeal, and consequential promotion cancellation.

A departmental finding is unsustainable where the enquiry travels beyond the charge-memo and fails to address the specific statutory violations alleged, instead relying on general financial practice. The enquiry report must also be supplied before the disciplinary authority takes a final decision when the enquiry officer is separate; furnishing it only with the penalty order denies an effective opportunity to respond and breaches natural justice. A cryptic appellate order that does not deal with the grounds raised, and any promotion cancellation founded solely on a vitiated penalty, cannot survive. The note states that the disciplinary proceedings, penalty, appellate affirmation, and consequential cancellation of promotion were liable to be set aside.

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Issues: (i) Whether the enquiry report was vitiated for travelling beyond the charge-memo and recording findings on matters not charged; (ii) whether non-supply of the enquiry report before imposition of penalty violated the principles of natural justice; (iii) whether the appellate order and cancellation of promotion were sustainable.

Issue (i): Whether the enquiry report was vitiated for travelling beyond the charge-memo and recording findings on matters not charged.

Analysis: The charges were founded on alleged violation of specified statutory provisions governing refund and adjustment of security deposits. The enquiry report, however, did not identify or analyse the constituent requirements of those provisions and instead proceeded on the basis of a supposed breach of general financial practice. The findings were thus not confined to the actual charges and were reached without demonstrating the specific statutory violation alleged in the charge-memo.

Conclusion: The finding of guilt on the charges was perverse and unsustainable.

Issue (ii): Whether non-supply of the enquiry report before imposition of penalty violated the principles of natural justice.

Analysis: Where the enquiry officer is not the disciplinary authority, the delinquent employee is entitled to receive the enquiry report before the disciplinary authority forms its conclusion. Furnishing the report only along with the penalty order denied the petitioner an effective opportunity to meet the adverse findings before punishment was imposed. This defect caused prejudice because the penalty followed from the impugned report.

Conclusion: The penalty order was vitiated by breach of natural justice.

Issue (iii): Whether the appellate order and cancellation of promotion were sustainable.

Analysis: The appellate authority disposed of the statutory appeal by a cryptic order without dealing with the grounds raised. The cancellation of promotion was founded entirely on the penalty order. Once the penalty and underlying enquiry were found unsustainable, the consequential cancellation of promotion could not stand.

Conclusion: The appellate order and cancellation of promotion were liable to be set aside.

Final Conclusion: The disciplinary proceedings, the penalty founded on them, the appellate affirmation, and the consequential cancellation of promotion could not survive, and the petitioner was entitled to restoration of the promotional benefits.

Ratio Decidendi: A departmental finding is unsustainable if it travels beyond the charges or is based on conjecture rather than proof, and the delinquent must receive the enquiry report before the disciplinary authority takes a final decision when the enquiry officer is a separate authority.

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