VIGILANCE MANUAL VOLUME III - AP Online

398 DECISION - 152
court held the order as null and void and awarded him damages.
The High Court, however, quashed this order on appeal by the State
Government and the appellant then approached the Supreme Court
for setting aside the order of the High Court.
While challenging the order of compulsory retirement, the
appellant alleged that the Inquiry Officer was biased against him. A
number of circumstances came to light regarding the alleged bias of
Sri Manvi against him. It was found that on a number of occasions
Sri Manvi had threatened him with disciplinary action and tried to
harass him by ordering him to take charge of a large number of files
in the Weeding Section without providing him with any clerical
assistance for checking the files with the registers. Besides, he also
tried to get a certificate from the Superintendent of Hospital for Mental
Diseases, Hyderabad to the effect that Sri Parthasarathi was mentally
unsound and the correspondence between him and the
Superintendent indicated that he wanted to obtain the certificate so
that he could dispense with his services on the ground of mental
imbalance without having to hold an inquiry. The Supreme Court
ruled that the cumulative effect of all these circumstances “creates
in the mind of a reasonable man the impression that there was a real
likelihood of bias on the part of the Inquiring Officer”. Hence the
inquiry and the order passed basing on the inquiry were bad.
(152)
Reversion (non-penal)
Reversion of official from officiating post, on
controlling authority deciding that the official should
not be allowed to officiate in the higher post pending
inquiry into charges of corruption against him, is not
an order of punishment.
R.S. Sial vs. State of Uttar Pradesh,
1974(1) SLR SC 827