VIGILANCE MANUAL VOLUME III - AP Online

234 DECISION - 30
High Court set aside the order of dismissal and he was thereupon
reinstated and simultaneously suspended, served with a fresh
punishment notice and dismissed by the Government itself. The
petitioner thereupon approached the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
The High Court held that where the reinstatement by the
Government was made as a consequence of the setting aside of the
order of dismissal alone, and not because the inquiry had been
irregular or the findings were not accepted, but because the dismissal
was thought to be by an authority that was really not competent to
order it, it could not be said that the setting aside of the order of
dismissal and the reinstatement had the effect of quashing of the
entire proceedings and the cancellation of the old charge-sheet and
exoneration of all those charges. The officer can in such a case
show cause against a particular punishment, can assail in argument
the facts found against him and can further ask for a supplementary
inquiry only if sufficient grounds are shown such as a material
omission on the part of the Inquiring authority or a condoned omission
on the part of the officer himself. Subject to this, there is nothing
wrong in the original charge-sheet and the original inquiry report being
acted upon by the new punishing authority. Where the case was
taken up again at the stage where the Government had accepted
the inquiry report and it was ripe to issue a punishment notice upon
and after the issue of the punishment notice by the previous authority
had been set aside for want of jurisdiction as the Government
conceived it, there was nothing wrong in it.
(30)
Disciplinary proceedings — show cause against penalty
The mere fact that show-cause notice mentioned
all the three punishments referred to in Art. 311(2)
of Constitution will not make the notice bad.
Hukum Chand Malhotra vs. Union of India,
AIR 1959 SC 536
The Supreme Court held that the proposition that Art. 311(2)