New Delhi: The Supreme Court has pulled up the Army for discharging an operator in Corps of Artillery without even an enquiry for the simple reason that on four occasions he had overstayed during his leave.
A three-Judge bench of Justices T.S. Thakur, V. Gopala Gowda and Ms R. Banumathi allowing an appeal from Veerendra Kumar Dubey against the Army Tribunal’s order set aside the discharge order.
Pointing out that the appellant had already crossed the age of superannuation, the bench said interest of justice will be sufficiently served if we direct that the appellant shall be treated to have been in service till the time he would have completed the qualifying service for grant of pension.
The Bench said, “No back wages shall, however, be admissible.”
Writing the judgment, Justice Thakur said, “We find that no enquiry whatsoever was conducted by the Commanding Officer at any stage against the appellant as required under rules.
More importantly, there is nothing on record to suggest that the authority competent had taken into consideration the long service rendered by the appellant, the difficult living conditions and the hard stations at which he had served.
There is nothing on record to suggest that the nature of the misconduct leading to the award of red ink entries was so unacceptable that the competent authority had no option but to direct his discharge to prevent indiscipline in the force. The unfairness in any such situation makes it necessary to bring in safeguards to prevent miscarriage of justice.
That is precisely what the procedural safeguards purport to do in the present case.”
