'Disciplinary action cannot be taken against a retired employee'; Supreme Court's big decision
Supreme Court: In an important decision, the Supreme Court said that disciplinary action cannot be taken against a retired employee. The court said that departmental proceedings do not start with a 'show cause notice' but after the issuance of a charge sheet.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court made an important decision related to retired employees. The court says that if an employee retires after attaining the age of retirement or after an extended period of service, then no disciplinary action can be initiated against him. Further, the court also dismissed the petition of the State Bank of India against the decision of the Jharkhand High Court in which the dismissal order issued against Naveen Kumar Sinha was quashed.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuiyan said that departmental proceedings do not start only on the issuance of a show cause notice but only when a charge sheet is issued, as this is the date for considering the allegations leveled against the employee by the competent authority. In the said case, the High Court had said that the disciplinary proceedings were initiated after his retirement, which also included the extended period of service.
Employee Naveen Kumar had been accused of sanctioning loans in favor of his relatives in violation of banking norms. While the Supreme Court also said that the respondent employee had actually retired from SBI on December 26, 2003 on completion of 30 years of service, but his service was extended on August 5, 2003 from December 27, 2003 to October 1, 2010. But no further extension in service was done after October 1, 2010.
The bench upheld the High Court order and explained that the disciplinary proceedings against the respondent started on March 18, 2011, on the date when the disciplinary authority issued a charge memo to him, and not on August 18, 2009, when the show cause notice had been issued. SBI counsel argued that the employee had pleaded before the inquiry officer, disciplinary authority, and appellate authority that he was due to retire on October 30, 2012. He neither pleaded before the said authority nor before the high court that he was not in service with SBI since October 1, 2010. Dismissing the appeal, the court directed SBI to release all service dues of the employee within six weeks.
