Published on: 22 July 2023 at 10:30 IST
Court: Supreme Court
Citation: Indian Oil Corpn. V. Ajit Kumar Singh (2023)
Honourable Supreme Court of India has held that it is thus settled that the power of judicial review, if the constitutional court while exercising its jurisdiction of judicial review under Article 226 or Article 136 of the Constitution would not interfere with the findings of fact arrived at in the departmental enquiry proceedings except in a case of mala fides or perversity i.e. where there is no evidence to support a finding or where a finding is such that no man acting reasonably and with objectivity could have arrived at those findings and so long as there is some evidence to support the conclusion arrived at by the departmental authority, the same has to be sustained.
It is held that the role of the Constitutional Courts is to ensure fairness in treatment and not to ensure fairness of conclusion. The court/tribunal may interfere in the proceedings held against the delinquent if it is, in any manner, inconsistent with the rules of natural justice or in violation of the statutory rules prescribing the mode of enquiry or where the conclusion or finding reached by the disciplinary authority is based on no evidence.
To sum up, the scope of judicial review cannot be extended to the examination of correctness or reasonableness of a decision of authority as a matter of fact.
8. If the facts of the case are examined in the light of the settled principles of law in scope of judicial review, we find that the Division Bench of the High Court proceeded to reappreciate the entire evidence as if conviction in a criminal trial was being re-examined by the next higher court.
The stand taken by the respondent no. 1 was that he was on leave and there was no question of his tampering with any document. His contention was that merely because he had the duplicate key of the drawer where the documents were kept, he cannot be made responsible for any tampering. However, there was no answer to the finding recorded by the Inquiry Officer in the Inquiry Report, namely, that the changed form of quotation of M/s. Laxmi Singh contained original signature of respondent no. 1. The fact that this “Form of quotation” was changed is not in dispute. When the changed form of quotation also contained signature of respondent no. 1, it clearly established his involvement in the tampering of document. This fact has not even been noticed by the Division Bench of the High Court.
Drafted By Abhijit Mishra
