Holding that acquittal of a government servant from a criminal case would not have any bearing on departmental proceedings initiated against him/her for identical charges, the Madras High Court has confirmed a head constable’s dismissal from service.
A Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad reversed a single a judge’s February 14, 2018 order commuting the punishment from dismissal from service to compulsory retirement, so that the head constable could receive all terminal benefits, and restored the police department’s order dismissing him from service.
Allowing a State appeal challenging the single judge’s order, the Bench said: “Learned single judge has been predominantly swayed by the fact that the respondent (R. Gnanasekaran) herein has been acquitted by the trial court... but it is well settled that the findings of a criminal court cannot bind a civil court or a civil proceeding.
“The learned single judge should have restricted himself to the evidence which was placed before the inquiry officer in the departmental proceedings and ought not to have traversed beyond it. The finding of the inquiry officer... ought not to have been interfered with on the basis of material which did not emanate from the departmental proceeding.”
The charges levelled against the head constable was that he had tarnished the image of the police force by demanding dowry and beating his wife who was ultimately murdered in the police housing quarters at Erode in September 2006. He was also accused of attempting to cover up the crime and make it appear as a case of suicide.
A Sessions Court had acquitted him from the charge of murder in August 2007 and the High Court too in 2010 refused to entertain a revision petition filed against his acquittal. However, he was found guilty of the charges in the departmental proceedings and was imposed with the punishment of dismissal from service in 2012.
He challenged the punishment by way of a writ petition and a single judge of the court commuted the punishment to compulsory retirement forcing the police department to prefer the present writ appeal.
