CHENNAI: Can an employee be punished twice for
the same offence? No, said the Chennai bench of the Central Administrative
Tribunal (CAT) on Wednesday quashing an order of the ministry of communications
and IT to initiate fresh proceedings against a retired assistant postmaster who
had undergone punishment for his supervisory lapses.
The matter pertains to V Muthukannu,
sub-postmaster in Karur division, who was accused of irregular closure of a
recurring deposit and non-account of deposits. In his submissions to the
tribunal, Muthukannu said in March 2010, the superintendent of post offices
ordered recovery of Rs 8,000 per month from his salary for the loss caused to
the postal department. After seven months, it was increased to Rs 12,000. For
his contributory negligence, he paid Rs 5.07 lakh to the department. Also, for a
year, his salary was reduced and no increments were provided, said
Muthukannu.
However, in April 2012, a month before his
retirement, the member (personnel), department of posts, dropped the earlier
concluded proceedings and initiated a fresh proceeding for the same lapses. He
was also issued a memo stating his retirement benefits had been withheld. He
asked the CAT to set aside the order for fresh proceedings.
In the counter, the department of post denied
the averments and said Muthukannu was involved in a fraud to the tune of Rs
17.46 lakh at the Karur head post office. Fresh proceedings were initiated
according to the rules and there was no question of "double jeopardy." Further,
it was an exceptional case and had to be dealt with accordingly.
The bench comprising judicial member B
Venkateshwara Rao and administrative member P Prabhakaran said, "Once the
punishment imposed is undergone, no one can direct a fresh inquiry in the same
set of charges."
The bench quashed the order for fresh
proceedings and directed the department to pay all retrial benefits to
Muthukannu.
No comments:
Post a Comment