Karnataka Public Service Commission vs Venkataswamy

A.V. Chandrashekara, J.—In the present writ petition filed under Articles 226 and 227 of Constitution of India, order dated 29.4.2013 passed by the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal, Bangalore (for short "KAT") has been called in question. Several grounds have been urged in the writ petition.

Heard the learned counsel for the parties.

The facts leading to the present writ petition are as follows:

Respondent No. 1, Venkataswamy was the applicant before the KAT. He had been charge sheeted in a departmental enquiry for certain misconduct more particularly for helping a candidate, who had appeared for the interview to the post of Head Master. The main allegation against the applicant is that he had helped the candidate by replacing the caste certificate of the candidate in the place of earlier caste certificate produced before the Karnataka Public Service Commission when oral interview was held at Mysore. The entire focus of the enquiry officer was in regard to the report submitted by the COD Wing of Karnataka Police. Voluntary statement of the applicant stated to have been given before the Investigating Officer admitting his guilt is relied upon by the Presenting Officer before the Enquiry Officer. The Enquiry Officer has accepted the COD report and has placed reliance on the alleged voluntary statement given by the applicant before the Investigating Officer. Ultimately, the Enquiry Officer has come to the conclusion that the said charge has been proved against the delinquent officer for replacing the caste certificate in the application of the candidate Sri. Puttaswamy. Being aggrieved by the enquiry report, the applicant had approached the KAT by filing an application No. 4431/2001.

After perusing the records and hearing the arguments, the Tribunal has come to the conclusion that charges are not made out and hence, it has allowed the application holding that applicant is entitled for all consequential benefits from the respondent No. 1 within three months from the date of receipt of copy of its order.

The learned counsel for the petitioner has relied upon a decision of a Bench consisting of three Hon''ble Judges of the Supreme Court in the case of State of Haryana and Another Vs. Rattan Singh, . What is held in the said decision is that rules of Evidence Act are not applicable to a domestic enquiry or before Administrative Tribunals. It is further held that in a domestic enquiry all the strict and sophisticated rules of the Evidence Act may not apply. All materials which are logically probative for a prudent mind are permissible, though departmental authorities and administrative tribunals must be careful in evaluating such material and should not glibly swallow what is strictly speaking not relevant under the Evidence Act. The essence of a judicial approach is objectivity, exclusion of extraneous materials or considerations and observance of rules of natural justice. It is also further emphasized that fairplay is the basis and if perversity or arbitrariness, bias or surrender of independence of judgment, vitiate the conclusions reached, such a finding, even of a domestic tribunal, cannot be held to be good.

If the order passed by the Tribunal is viewed in the light of the pronouncement of the decision in the case of State of Haryana and another v. Rattan Singh stated supra, we are of the considered opinion that Tribunal has taken pains to evaluate the materials taken into consideration by the Enquiry Officer. As could be seen from the impugned order, it is evident that except charge sheet filed by the COD Wing, no acceptable evidence is placed on record. The charge sheet so produced before the Enquiry Officer is inclusive of voluntary statement said to have been given by the applicant before the Investigating Officer. It is ununderstandable as to how this piece of evidence could be taken into consideration as probative evidence more particularly when the author of the charge sheet is examined.

Viewed from any angle, the Tribunal has passed a detailed order adverting to the contentions raised by the learned counsel for the parties. The Tribunal has also relied upon the decision in the case of State of Andhra Pradesh Vs. Sree Rama Rao, . It was urged before the Tribunal that Tribunal cannot interfere with the finding arrived at in the Disciplinary proceedings when there is some evidence against the applicant.

We are of the considered opinion that the evidence relied upon by the Presenting officer before the Enquiry Officer is no evidence in the eye of law and it does not have any probative value. Viewed from any angle, there is no error in the order passed by the Tribunal and no interference is called for. Consequently the petition is liable to be dismissed.

ORDER

The petition is dismissed by upholding the order of the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal, Bangalore passed in Application No. 4431/2001 dated 29.4.2013.

There is no order as to costs.