Rekha Palli JUDGMENT
Rekha Palli, J.
1. The present intra Court appeal impugns the order dated 16th January, 2015 passed by the learned Single Judge in WP (C) No. 824/1999 whereby while allowing the writ petition filed by the respondent, the penalty of removal from service imposed upon the respondent by the appellant/Bank has been modified to that of compulsory retirement.
2. The facts as emerge from the record, are that the respondent/employee while working as a Chief Inspector, Inspection & Control Division Head Office of the appellant/Bank, was issued a chargesheet dated 11th March, 1994 on the ground that he had committed irregularities while working in the Credit Department at the Head Office of the erstwhile New Bank of India and had, thus, not discharged his duty with utmost integrity by not taking adequate steps to ensure the protection and interest of the appellant/Bank. The fulcrum of articles of charge was that the respondent made a recommendation to the Board of the appellant/Bank for facilitating grant of a loan to a party regardless of the shortcomings involved in it. Upon the respondent denying the charges, a departmental inquiry was held against him whereafter the Inquiry Officer submitted his report holding him guilty of the charges, which are reproduced as under:-
"Article I
He recommended the proposal of the party in haste in order to facilitate them and jeopardised bank's interest.
Article II
He extended undue favour to the party and jeopardised Bank's interest.
Shri Bansal thus did not discharge his duties with utmost integrity, honesty, devotion and diligence and failed to take all possible steps to ensure and protect the interests of the Bank."
3. It further transpires from the record that the Disciplinary Authority of the Appellant/Bank vide its order dated 22nd June, 1995, accepted the report of the Inquiry Officer and imposed punishment of removal from service on the respondent with a classification that the same would not be treated as a disqualification for any future employment to be pursued by the respondent. Aggrieved by the penalty order dated 22nd June, 1995, the respondent preferred an appeal dated 17th July, 1995, before the Appellate Authority which was rejected vide order dated 25th August, 1995.
4. The respondent, thereafter, preferred a review petition dated 17th October, 1996 before the Board of the appellant/Bank, which petition met with the same fate, having been rejected vide order dated 11th December, 1996.
5. Aggrieved by the penalty of removal from service imposed upon him, which penalty was also maintained by the Appellate Authority, the respondent preferred a writ petition before this Court. It appears that initially, the writ petition was argued in detail on various aspects in which the respondent had not only urged the ground of delay in initiation of proceedings by contending that the chargesheet had been issued to him seven years after the date of the alleged lapse on his part but had also argued on the ground that the inquiry had been conducted without providing him with the services of a defence assistance and that the inquiry officer had held him guilty without appreciating the basic fact that the onus to prove the charges against him was on the appellant/Bank. It, however, transpires that during the course of hearing, the respondent had confined his relief to........