A government employee can't be kept suspended for more than three months if not formally informed about the charges, the Supreme Court said Monday.
Based
on the principle of human dignity and the right to speedy trial, the landmark
verdict is expected to affect lakhs of government employees across India, many
of whom are under suspension for years pending departmental proceedings.
"Suspension,
specially preceding the formulation of charges, is essentially transitory or
temporary in nature, and must perforce be of short duration," a bench
headed by justice Vikramjit Sen said.
If
the charge sheet or memorandum of charges was served within three month, the
suspension could be extended, it ruled.
"If
it (suspension) is for an indeterminate period or if its renewal is not based
on sound reasoning…, this would render it punitive in nature," the court
said.
It
agreed with petitioner's senior counsel Nidhesh Gupta that a suspension order
can't continue for an unreasonably long period.
Protracted
periods of suspension had become the norm and not the exception that they ought
to be, the court said. It drew a parallel with criminal investigation wherein a
person accused of heinous crime is released from jail after the expiry of 90
days if police fail to file the charge sheet.
The
suspended persons suffers even before being charged and "his torment is
his knowledge that if and when charged, it will inexorably take an inordinate
time for the inquisition or inquiry to come to its culmination".
"Much too often this has now become an accompaniment to retirement,"
the court said, setting aside a direction of the central vigilance commission
that required departmental proceedings to be kept in abeyance pending a
criminal investigation.
The
government, however, was free to transfer the officer concerned to any
department in any of its offices to ensure the employee did not misuse contacts
for obstructing the probe, the court said.
The
order came on a petition filed by defence estate officer Ajay Kumar Choudhary,
who was suspended in September 2011 for allegedly issuing wrong no-objection
certificates for the use of a four-acre land parcel in Kashmir. After failing
to get relief from the Delhi high court, Choudhary had moved the top court in
2013.
Since
a charge sheet had already been served on Choudhary, these directions would not
apply to his case, the court said.
