Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: June 6, 2022 at 19:00 IST
An officer of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has been granted relief after a seven-year legal battle, and the Delhi High Court has held that allowing Disciplinary Proceedings to go on indefinitely would not only be prejudicial to the individual, but also destructive to the Rule of Law.
Anish Gupta, an officer on special duty (legal at the CBIC) at the time of his suspension in August 2013, had filed cross petitions before a Division Bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta.
The petitioner contended that, in pursuant with an incident that occurred in July 2013, he was served with a Departmental Charge Sheet/Memorandum of Charge. Admittedly, no criminal investigation or prosecution was ever initiated or contemplated against him.
The Petitioner had then moved to CAT praying to get the Charge Sheet quashed where the Government was granted four months time to finish the Disciplinary Proceedings arising from the subject Charge Sheet. It is true that the Union of India did not file a request for a time extension.
There is no gain saying the legal position that the Disciplinary Proceedings cannot continue indefinitely, the Division Bench stated. The Rule of Law would be destroyed if such proceedings were allowed to go on indefinitely. It would also be prejudicial to the petitioner in this case.
According to Article 12 of the Constitution, the Respondent Union of India, being a state, is bound to behave in a fair, non-discriminatory, reasonable, and non-arbitrary manner. The Respondent’s conduct in the facts of present over a lengthy period of 05 years, not just on one or two hearing dates, disentitles it for any discretionary relief of extension of time.