UT Power Dept XEN’s plea to quash chargesheet dismissed

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 24

The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Chandigarh Bench, dismissed an application seeking quashing of chargesheet and disciplinary proceedings against an executive engineer (XEN) of the UT Electricity Department.

The Tribunal rejected the plea of Anil Dhamija saying that a show-cause notice or chargesheet does not infringe rights of anyone.

The Tribunal observed that only when a final order imposing some punishment or otherwise adversely affecting a party is passed, that the said party can be said to have any grievance. The Bench also mentioned that neither the disciplinary proceedings nor the chargesheet could be quashed at an initial stage as it would be a premature stage to deal with the issues.

In December last year, CAT had put a stay on the punishment of recovery of Rs 10,000 imposed on Dhamija. In his application to the Tribunal, Dhamija had stated that a penalty was imposed on him as recovery of Rs 10,000 and a recorded warning for delay in filing a written statement in the case of ‘Kashmira Singh and others v/s UT of Chandigarh and others’ in which he was cited as nodal officer, though in fact he was not.

An order was passed by the department in April, 2011, and nodal officers were appointed to update legal cases of the department. He was later cited as the nodal officer in a case while he was not. He replied and informed about the same to his superintending engineer vide a letter informing about the name and details of nodal officers.

However, in May 2017, the Chief Engineer issued a show-cause notice to the applicant on the ground of not filing the reply which resulted in the imposition of penalty of Rs 20,000 on the department. The applicant was called to file reply within one week failing which necessary action would be initiated against him without giving any opportunity to the applicant coupled with deduction of penalty amount from him. A similar notice was issued to the SE Electricity and AEE who were involved in the process. On June 2, 2017, Dhamija submitted his reply to the notice explaining his position.

Via a letter in November from the office of Chief Engineer, the order of imposition of penalty dated November 27 by the Adviser to the UT Administrator was served to Dhamija. The punishment included a warning and also recovery of Rs 10,000 from him. Dhamija had then told CAT that neither the Adviser has the power to do so nor was any charge framed against him, as per procedure in such cases.