Bhopal, Sep 06: The Madhya Pradesh High Court has set aside the punishment imposed on an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) after finding that he had a lesser role in an alleged bribery episode but was given the same penalty as the Sub-Inspector against whom the bribery and misconduct charges were proved.
The court sent the matter back to the disciplinary authority to reconsider his punishment and directed that any fresh punishment must be lesser than that imposed on the sub-inspector.
Justice Anand Singh Bahrawat noted that the disciplinary authority imposed the same punishment of withholding one annual increment with cumulative effect on both employees, even though the petitioner was not found guilty of bribery or misconduct and was only found to have failed to report the incident to his superior officers. Merely because two employees were involved in the same incident or were proceeded against in the same departmental enquiry does not mean that they must necessarily receive the same punishment.
Court added that their individual role, responsibility and degree of misconduct have to be considered separately.
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