Supreme Court upholds harsher punishment for higher authority

NEW DELHI: Linking punishment with the rank in office hierarchy, the Supreme Court has said that a higher authority carries higher responsibility and so harsher will be the consequences for any service misdeeds, upholding a differential penalty imposed on a senior manager, an officer and a gunman in a bank who were found guilty of misappropriating customers' money.

While the manager was sacked, the officer was forced to retire and the gunman given a salary cut.

SC quashed a Delhi HC order which had said that there could not be discrimination in punishment for the same offence and had reduced the manager’s punishment from termination to compulsory retirement.

SC: Courts must show restraint in interfering with disciplinary action

A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma said differentiation in rank coupled with responsibility and trust attached with the post are compelling grounds for stringent punishment on higher rank officials.

“The rank of the respondent was not merely titular; it carried with it an increased degree of responsibility and integrity. The role of the respondent not only necessitated personal obedience but also supervision of the actions of the subordinates. The co-delinquents, having limited powers and authority, could not have been equated with the respondent,” the bench said. “The gravity of the misconduct necessarily had to be measured with the nature of the misconduct. Thus, grant of the benefit of parity to the respondent by the high court merely because the co-delinquents were given lighter punishment was entirely misconceived,” it said, while restoring the differential punishments.

The bench also said that courts should exercise restraint while interfering with the orders of punishment and observed that normally, no court in exercise of its power of judicial review should interfere with an order of punishment imposed on a delinquent as a disciplinary action by a competent authority. “This is premised on the reason that the disciplinary authority is the best judge of the situation, and the requirements of maintaining discipline within the work force...judicial scrutiny of the disciplinary action by way of punishment could arise only if the circumstances are such that no reasonable person would impose the punishment which is questioned...” it said.
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