JUDGMENT
M.R. Agnihotri, J.
1. Petitioner Jagir Singh was working as Kanungo in the Punjab Revenue Department and was posted at Lalru, Tehsil Rajpura, District Patiala, in the year 1970 He was appointed as a receiver in a dispute regarding agricultural land, the proceedings regarding which were pending before the Sub Divisional Officer (Civil), Rajpura. Due to certain irregularities regarding the functioning of the petitioner in that capacity, departmental proceedings were initiated against the petitioner and an inquiry officer was appointed who submitted his report on 28th July, 1972. However, the matter remained pending, for a full decade and ultimately on 27th July, 1982. a show cause notice was served on the petitioner to which he submitted his reply on 9th August, 1982 Even thereafter the matter remained pending for about two years and nothing was decided one way or the other. Ultimately, on 26th October, 1983, the petitioner submitted a representation to the authorities requesting for the dropping of proceedings pending against him since long, by placing reliance on the policy instructions of the State Government issued vide letter No. 12277-V(1)-59/13470, dated 10th December, 1959, from the Secretary to Government, Punjab, Vigilance Department. The relevant extract from these instructions is reproduced below 😕
“3. In this background, keeping in view practical considerations as far as possible, Government have taken the following decisions.
(i) The whole process of investigation and enquiry should be completed within six months excluding period of reference to the Public Service Commission and period where proceedings are stopped owing to a reference to court of law.
(ii) Extension of the period by another three months may be obtained under the order of the Minister-in-charge.
(ii) Any extension beyond nine months i.e. period (i) and (ii) above is needed full facts and justification must be placed before the Cabinet and their approval taken.
4. I am to request that these instructions may be kept in view by all concerned for strict observance,
5. This supersedes all the previous instructions on the subject.”
When no reply thereto was received by the petitioner, he approached this Court by way of the present writ petition for quashing of the departmental proceedings against him.
2. In the meantime, in a similar case Jagir Singh v. State of Punjab and Ors., C.W.P. 665 of 1977 a Division Bench of this Court considered the applicability and the justiciability of the aforesaid instructions on 22nd February, 1977, by holding as under :-
“A grievance is made in the petition that as laid down in the policy decision dated December 10, 1959, taken by the State Government, the matter had to be referred to the Cabinet for getting its approval for continuing the enquiry against the petitioner beyond a period of 9 mouths. The facts are not disputed in the written statement. It is, however, averred therein that the ‘approval of appropriate authority for continuing suspension is being sought for in terms of the administrative instructions. This implies that the enquiry is being continued against the petitioner and he is being kept under suspension without the approval of the competent authority. We accordingly allow this petition and direct that the petitioner be reinstated to the post, paid arrears of salary and other emoluments of office and enquiry against him should not be continued unless and until the matter is placed before the Cabinet and is approved of by it in accordance with the policy decision mentioned above”.
Therefore, when the writ petition filed by the present petitioner, Jagir Singh Kanungo, came up before the Motion Bench, it was admitted to D. B. Later on, when the Division Bench, heard the case on 26th October, 1987, the Bench was prima facie of the view that the aforesaid Division Bench decision (in CWP No. 665 of 1977) did not lay down the correct law and required re-consideration by a larger Bench. Hence, the case was referred to the Full Bench and is thus placed before us for consideration.
3. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties, we are of the considered view that the aforesaid Division Bench judgment does not lay down the correct law It is no doubt correct and reasonable also, that departmental proceedings initiated against the employees should be finalised expeditiously. Expeditious disposal helps the employer as well as, the employees as it removes uncertainty about the future career of the employees and lessens the financial burden in most of the cases, where the employees are either placed under suspension or their promotions etc. are deferred during the pendency of the inquiry. But, for how many months a particular departmental inquiry can be allowed to continue and after the expiry of how many months the approval of the Head of the Department the Secretary to the Government/the Chief Secretary/the Minister Incharge, or the Cabinet (Council of Ministers) has to be obtained or not, is purely for the employer to consider In that process the delinquent employee cannot be associated nor does he have any say in the matter. If the State Government have issued certain guidelines for the guideance of the various departments or the disciplinary authorities to impress upon them the necessity of finalising the departmental proceedings expeditiously or even within a fixed period, it does not mean that after the expiry of that period, a right in law accrues to the employee to approach the Court of law for the enforcement of those guidelines The employee may, in a fit case, approach the Court for the quashing of the proceedings, if the pendency of the inquiry has otherwise been protracted and delayed to an unreasonable extent by the employer himself. Therefore, we cannot persuade ourselves to accept the view taken by the Division Bench in C. W. P. No. 665 of 1977 (supra), and with respect we have no option but to overrule the same.
4. So far as the facts of the present case are concerned, the departmental proceedings certainly deserve to be quashed. A departmental inquiry was initiated against the petitioner more than twenty years back, as the inquiry report itself was submitted on 28th July, 1972. It took full ten years for the State Government to serve the show-cause notice on the petitioner and even reply thereto was submitted by the petitioner on 9th August, 1982. Again ten years have passed and the matter has not been finalised so far. For arriving at our conclusion, we place reliance on the judgment of Hon’ble the Supreme Court in the State of Madhya Pradesh v. Bani Singh, A.I. R. 1990 S.C. 1308 relevant para whereof is reproduced below :-
“4. The appeal against the order dated 16th December, 1987, has been filed on the ground that the Tribunal should not have quashed the proceedings merely on the ground of delay and laches and should have allowed the enquiry to go on to decide the matter on merits. We, are unable to agree with this contention of the learned counsel. The irregularities which were the subject-matter of the enquiry is said to have taken place between the years 1975-1977. It is not the case of the department that they were not aware of the said irregularities, if any, and came to know it only in 1987. According to them even in April, 1977. there was doubt about the involvement of the officer in the said irregularities and the investigations were going on since then. If that is so, it is unreasonable to think that they would have taken more than 12 years to initiate the disciplinary proceedings as stated by the Tribunal. There is no satisfactory explanation for the inordinate delay in issuing charge memo and we are also of the view that it will be unfair to permit the departmental inquiry to be proceeded with at this stage. In any case, there are no grounds to interfere with the Tribunal’s orders and accordingly we dismiss this appeal”.
5. Resultantly, we allow this petition and quash the departmental proceedings pending against the petitioner. If the petitioner has since retired from service, he shall be entitled to his pension and other retiring benefits, in accordance with the rules, which shall be released to him within a period of three months.