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Sandeep Kumar vs. GB Pant Institute of Engineering and Technology Ghurdauri

Not available · 2024 INSC 309Decided 16 Apr 2024
Not available
Justice B.R. Gavai · Justice Sandeep Mehta

Background

The appellant was appointed Registrar of a government engineering institute in Uttarakhand in 2019, on a one-year probation, and worked there for nearly two years before his services were abruptly terminated in 2022 over alleged irregularities in his selection. His challenge in the Uttarakhand High Court was dismissed solely because he had not placed on record the minutes of a 2018 Board of Governors meeting referenced in his termination letter, which the High Court treated as suppression of material facts.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court examined the actual minutes of the 2018 meeting (produced before it) and found they did not support the High Court's conclusion: the Board had in fact approved his selection, subject only to a temporary hold pending inquiry into complaints, and a later three-member committee had cleared him and found him qualified. The Court held that terminating a long-serving employee without any disciplinary enquiry or opportunity to show cause was a clear violation of natural justice, and that dismissing his writ petition on the technical ground of a missing document, when that very document favoured him, was erroneous. The termination order and both High Court judgments were quashed, and the appellant was ordered reinstated with all consequential benefits, though the institute was left free to hold proper disciplinary proceedings if it wished.

Lesson Learnt

An employer cannot terminate an employee's services as a "major penalty" without first holding a fair disciplinary enquiry, and courts should not dismiss a genuine grievance on a technical pleading defect when the underlying document actually supports the employee's case.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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