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V.M. Saudagar (Dead) Through Legal Heirs vs. The Divisional Commercial Manager, Central Railway & Anr.

Not available · 2025 INSC 1257Decided 27 Oct 2025
Not available
Justice Sanjay Karol · Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra

Background

The appellant, a Travelling Ticket Examiner with Central Railway, Nagpur, was checked by a railway vigilance team on a train in May 1988 and accused of demanding illegal gratification from three passengers for berth allotment, possessing unaccounted excess cash, failing to recover a fare difference, and forging a duty-card pass. A departmental enquiry found all charges proved, and he was dismissed from service in 1996. On appeal, the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) quashed the dismissal and ordered reinstatement, but the Bombay High Court (Nagpur Bench) reversed the CAT and restored the dismissal. By the time the matter reached the Supreme Court, the appellant had passed away and his legal heirs pursued the appeal, with a delay of 519 days in filing that the Court condoned.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court examined the enquiry record and found that the Enquiry Officer's findings were perverse: based on incomplete and misleading material, including the failure to examine one of the key complainants (Hemant Kumar) whose allegation formed part of the charges. It held that CAT was fully justified in interfering with the dismissal on this basis, and that the High Court had erred in overturning CAT's well-reasoned order. Noting that the incident was now more than 37 years old and the employee had since died, the Court set aside the High Court's judgment, restored the CAT's order, and directed that all consequential monetary and pensionary benefits be paid to the legal heirs within three months.

Lesson Learnt

Disciplinary dismissal cannot stand on enquiry findings that are perverse or based on incomplete evidence, such as failing to examine a key complainant, and courts will intervene to protect an employee (or their heirs) even decades after the fact if the original enquiry process was fundamentally flawed.

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

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