According to the Supreme Court, disciplinary proceeding cannot be initiated against an employee after a “delinquent employee or officer retires from service” on reaching the retirement age or after their extended period of service.
The ruling came in the case of a bank employee against whom disciplinary proceedings were initiated after he had served his extended period of service.
The employee in question began working for SBI as a clerk-typist in 1973 and climbed up the ranks to a managerial position. He was to retire on 16 December 2003 post 30 years of service, but his service, however, was extended till 1 October 2010. The first show cause notice was issued on 18 August 2009, but the disciplinary action was initiated only on 18 March, 2011 (after his extended service period was over) by issuing a charge memo.
The Court clarified that subsisting disciplinary proceedings that begin before an employee retires can be continued after their retirement “by creating a legal fiction of continuance of service of the delinquent officer” just so that the disciplinary proceeding can be concluded properly. However, disciplinary proceedings cannot be initiated after the retirement of the employee or after an employee has completed the extended period of service, stated the bench comprising Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan.
The Bank maintained that since the notice was issued before the employee’s extended service period had ended, he cannot try to escape the disciplinary proceedings. The employee, however, argued that the proceedings were initiated after he completed the extended service period post superannuation. He argued that as per SBI Officers’ Service Rules, the disciplinary proceedings can be continued if they were initiated before he had retired but not after retirement.
As per law, disciplinary proceedings are deemed to start from the date the charge sheet is filed and not from the date of issue of any notice.
In this employee’s case, the charge sheet was filed after he had completed the extended term of service.
Had the SBI initiated the disciplinary proceedings before the employee had completed the extended service term, the proceedings would have been valid.
Therefore, the Court saw “no merit in the appeal” and ordered the bank to release the pending dues of the said employee within six weeks.
