New Delhi, February 20
Publication of a charge-sheet in a major newspaper of the area for initiating disciplinary action against an absconding employee was sufficient to proceed further and there was no need to send a separate communication to him if he had not responded to repeated notices by the inquiry committee, the Supreme Court today ruled.

This was held by a Bench of Justices H.K. Sema and Markandey Katju while upholding the dismissal of Chief Inspector (CI) of the Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) K.C. Rahi in 1990 for abandoning his duty from its the Tapri regional office in Kinnaur district.

The court said when an employee, who was not submitting himself to the jurisdiction of an inquiry committee on repeated service of notice through official channels or registered post, then the publication of the charge-sheet in the leading newspapers of the area where he was posted was “sufficient” to prove the service of the notice.

Once the publication was made it would be “deemed” to have been served on the employee and if he still did not appear before the inquiry committee, it was competent to proceed further against him on the basis of the material on record and such proceeding would not amount to violation of natural justice, it said.

HRTC counsel J.S. Attri told the court that Rahi was charged with leaving the place of his posting without the permission of the competent authority, availing unauthorised leave, not performing the duty assigned to him and submitting false checking returns and the late submission of checking reports as a CI.

When the Inquiry Officer appointed by the HRTC to probe the charges against him summoned him, he failed to appear before the panel after repeated summons were sent to his residential address, Attri said.

Consequently, the HRTC published a notice in The Tribune, on May 22, 1993, spelling out the charges and the reason for inquiry again, but he still did not appear before the panel, which finally passed an ex parte order removing him from the duty.

Rahi challenged his removal in the State Administrative Tribunal, which rejected his petition and found no reason to interfere with the findings of the probe panel.

But the state high court quashed the findings of the inquiry committee on the ground that there was no clear proof to show that the charge-sheet had been properly served on him by way of the newspaper advertisement.

However, the apex court did not agree with the findings of the high court and held that it should have not gone on the facts of the case afresh as there was no dispute over them. The high court could have interfered only if the Tribunal had not applied the law properly.

As a result, the apex court upheld the dismissal of Rahi and set aside the high court order.