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Uttarakhand Transport Corporation (Earlier Known As U.P.S.R.T.C.) & Ors. v. Sukhveer Singh (2017 INSC 1094)

Civil Appeal · 2017 INSC 1094Decided 10 Nov 2017
Civil Appeal No. 18448 of 2017
Justice Arun Mishra · Justice L. Nageswara Rao

Background

The respondent, a bus driver for the (then) U.P. State Road Transport Corporation, was dismissed after an inquiry found he had deliberately failed to stop his bus when flagged down by an inspection team, allowing 61 ticketless passengers to be carried in collusion with the conductor. After years of litigation through the labour court and High Court, the Uttarakhand High Court ultimately set aside his dismissal and ordered reinstatement with full back benefits: solely because the inquiry report had been given to him together with the show-cause notice rather than before it.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court misapplied the settled law (from ECIL v. B. Karunakar and Haryana Financial Corpn. v. Kailash Chandra Ahuja): while natural justice ordinarily requires supplying the inquiry report before the show-cause notice, a procedural lapse of this kind does not automatically void a dismissal: the employee must specifically plead and prove that the delay caused him real prejudice. Here, the driver had, in fact, received the report along with the show-cause notice, responded to it, and never claimed any prejudice from the timing; the Court therefore found no basis to reinstate him on that technical ground, and saw no point in remanding the case just to examine prejudice. On the merits, the Court agreed with the disciplinary and appellate authorities that the driver's collusion in a ticketless-passenger scheme was proven misconduct that could not be excused as "minor," since corruption/misappropriation cannot be condoned even in small amounts. The appeal was allowed and the High Court's judgment reinstating him was set aside.

Lesson Learnt

A technical lapse in disciplinary procedure, such as handing over the inquiry report together with, rather than strictly before, the show-cause notice, will not by itself undo a dismissal; the employee must actually show that the lapse caused real, specific prejudice to his defence, not just point to the irregularity itself.

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

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