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Sunny Abraham v. Union of India & Anr.

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 920Decided 17 Dec 2021
Civil Appeal No. 7764 of 2021
Justice L. Nageswara Rao · Justice Aniruddha Bose

Background

The appellant, an Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax, was issued a charge memorandum in 2002 for alleged misconduct, but the memorandum had not been specifically approved by the Finance Minister (the Disciplinary Authority), as required by the applicable conduct rules. Years later, in 2014, the government issued an office memorandum purporting to give ex-post facto approval to the 2002 charge memorandum so the proceedings could continue. The Central Administrative Tribunal struck down this retrospective approval, but the Delhi High Court reversed the Tribunal and upheld it.

Decision Breakdown

Relying on its own earlier ruling in Union of India v. B.V. Gopinath, the Supreme Court held that a charge memorandum issued without the Disciplinary Authority's approval is "non est", legally non-existent, and that such a fundamental defect cannot be cured by approving it after the fact; approval for initiating an inquiry and approval of the actual charge memorandum are two distinct steps that both require independent application of mind by the Disciplinary Authority. The Court set aside the High Court's judgment and restored the Tribunal's order, while permitting the Department to issue a fresh, properly approved charge memorandum within two months if it wished to pursue the matter.

Lesson Learnt

A disciplinary charge-sheet against a government employee must be approved in advance by the authority empowered to discipline them; a belated attempt to "ratify" an improperly issued charge-sheet years later does not fix the defect, though the authority remains free to start the process over correctly.

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

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