Benguluru: The Karnataka High Court held that disciplinary inquiries must be initiated within a reasonable period, and initiating such proceedings after a significant delay is unfair.
A charge sheet was issued against the petitioner alleging that he did not collect development charges/layout charges from a certain individual and issued an unauthorized khatha in 1989.
The petitioner argued that initiating a disciplinary inquiry 17 years after the alleged misconduct was unjustified.
Despite this defense, an inquiry was conducted, finding the petitioner guilty & the petitioner filed a writ petition challenging the order of compulsory retirement and the demand to reimburse the state.
A Bench of Justice N S Sanjay Gowda held that, “It is settled by a series of decisions of the Apex Court that disciplinary enquiry should be initiated within a reasonable period and it would be unfair to permit the disciplinary enquiry to be initiated after a long lapse of time. Since, in the instant case, the enquiry proceedings were initiated 17 years after the alleged misconduct, in my view, the entire proceedings which has culminated in the impugned order cannot be sustained and the same is accordingly quashed.”
The Court noted the significant delay in initiating the disciplinary proceedings, stating that disciplinary inquiries must be initiated within a reasonable time.
The Court said that in respect of this endorsement of the year 1989, obviously, the charge sheet laid against the petitioner, 17 years thereafter in the year 2006, cannot be sustained. There is absolutely no reason put forth by the authorities for the inordinate delay in issuing the charge memo.
The Enquiry Officer has also not taken into consideration this aspect of the matter, which fundamentally vitiated the entire enquiry.
Due to the 17-year delay, the court quashed the entire proceedings.
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