Departmental misconduct cannot rest solely on police confessions; findings need probative evidence and are vulnerable when based on no evidence.

In departmental proceedings, a finding of misconduct must rest on some material with probative value and cannot be based only on confessional statements recorded during a criminal investigation. Section 161 CrPC statements are not substantive evidence, and police-recorded confessions, without the makers being examined, could not by themselves prove the charges where the employees were not tried as co-accused. The Court also held that limited ancillary material, including an alert circular, did not supply legally sustainable evidence. Accordingly, punishment founded on no evidence was unsustainable and liable to judicial interference; the connected Tribunal order was upheld.

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Issues: (i) Whether confessional statements recorded during criminal investigation could, by themselves, prove charges in departmental proceedings where the charged employee was neither tried as a co-accused nor examined in the criminal case. (ii) Whether the punishment orders in the departmental proceedings were sustainable when the record contained no evidence apart from such confessional statements and limited ancillary material.

Issue (i): Whether confessional statements recorded during criminal investigation could, by themselves, prove charges in departmental proceedings where the charged employee was neither tried as a co-accused nor examined in the criminal case.

Analysis: The evidentiary standard in disciplinary matters is preponderance of probabilities, not proof beyond reasonable doubt, and the strict rules of the Indian Evidence Act do not apply in the same manner as in criminal trials. Even so, a finding of misconduct must rest on some material with probative value and cannot rest on mere suspicion. Statements recorded under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 are not substantive evidence in criminal trial, and confessions to police officers are barred by Sections 25 and 26 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, save for the limited exception under Section 27. Under Section 15 of the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987, a confession could be used against a co-accused only if the co-accused was charged and tried in the same case. The employees here were not so tried, and the persons whose confessions were relied upon were not examined as witnesses in the departmental enquiry. The police officers who recorded those statements could only speak to the fact of recording the confessions, not to the truth of the charges against the employees.

Conclusion: Such confessional statements, on their own, were not sufficient to prove the charges in the departmental proceedings.

Issue (ii): Whether the punishment orders in the departmental proceedings were sustainable when the record contained no evidence apart from such confessional statements and limited ancillary material.

Analysis: Judicial review in disciplinary matters permits interference where the finding is based on no evidence, is perverse, or disregards vital material. The Court found that the only other material was an alert circular, which by itself did not establish the misconduct alleged. The remaining material did not amount to evidence proving the charges even on a civil standard. Since the conclusions of guilt were reached without legally sustainable evidence, the punishment orders could not be upheld. On the other hand, the Tribunal order upholding the disciplinary action in the other writ petition did not suffer from illegality warranting interference.

Conclusion: The punishment orders against the employee whose charges were founded only on the inadmissible confessional material were unsustainable, while the Tribunal's order in the connected matter was sustained.

Final Conclusion: The common judgment led to one writ petition being allowed with consequential relief and the connected writ petition being dismissed, resulting in partial success for each side in the combined proceedings.

Ratio Decidendi: In departmental proceedings, a finding of guilt must rest on some evidence with probative value; where the conclusion is founded only on confessional statements of non-testifying persons from a criminal investigation and no legally sustainable evidence otherwise exists, the finding is open to judicial interference as one based on no evidence.

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