R. P. Kapur vs Pratap Singh Kairon and Others

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Civil Appeal No. 75 of 1963

Decision Date: 2 August 1963

Coram: M. Hidayatullah, S.K. Das, P.B. Gajendragadkar, A.K. Sarkar, K.N. Wanchoo, K.C. Das Gupta, N. Rajagopala Ayyangar

In the matter titled R. P. Kapur versus Pratap Singh Kairon and others, the Supreme Court of India issued its judgment on 2 August 1963. The opinion was authored by Justice M. Hidayatullah and the bench comprised Justices M. Hidayatullah, S. K. Das, P. B. Gajendragadkar, A. K. Sarkar, K. N. Wanchoo, K. C. Das Gupta and N. Rajagopala Ayyangar. The case is reported in 1964 AIR 295 and 1964 SCR (4) 224. The central statutory provision involved was the Public Servants (Inquiries) Act, 1850, under which an enquiry was ordered against a civil servant. The Court was asked to consider several questions: whether an order of enquiry was competent when a First Information Report had already been filed under the Code of Criminal Procedure; what the term “misbehaviour” meant in the Inquiries Act; how the procedure under the Inquiries Act differed from that under the All‑India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1955; and whether the Act, or its application, infringed constitutional guarantees contained in Articles 14, 16 and 20(3) of the Constitution, particularly where the Government acted in a mala‑fide manner.

The petitioner, R. P. Kapur, had entered the Indian Civil Service in 1938 and continued in service after India’s independence. Since 1948 he had been employed by the Government of Punjab. While holding the position of Commissioner of the Ambala Division, he was suspended in July 1959. Prior to that suspension two criminal cases had been instituted against him, and during 1960 additional criminal proceedings were instituted against him and some of his relatives. The criminal cases pending before various magistrates in Punjab were, by order of the Court, transferred to criminal courts subordinate to the Allahabad High Court. Two of those cases were subsequently dismissed by order of the Additional District Magistrate of Saharanpur. Separate matters arising from a complaint by a person identified as Dhingra and from a report by Daryo Singh were recorded as “untraced” by a magistrate on 25 May 1961.

On 26 May 1961 the Governor of Punjab issued an order directing that an enquiry be held against Kapur under the Public Servants (Inquiries) Act, 1850. The charges in that enquiry were drawn from the allegations contained in the Dhingra complaint and the Daryo Singh report. By a further order on the same day, the Governor appointed Justice D. Falshaw, then a puisne judge of the Punjab High Court, to act as Commissioner for conducting the enquiry. The appellant was served with notice of the enquiry and was informed that it would commence on 28 August 1961. In response, on 18 July 1961 Kapur filed a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution, seeking a declaration that the Government’s order directing the enquiry should be set aside. The High Court dismissed the petition, leading Kapur to obtain special leave to appeal before this Court.

The High Court rejected every argument presented by the appellant and dismissed his writ petition. The appellant then obtained special leave to approach this Court. Before this Court the appellant maintained that an enquiry could not be instituted under the Inquiries Act because First Information Reports had already been filed under the Code of Criminal Procedure concerning the acts described in the charge sheets. He further argued that Section 2 of the Inquiries Act was unconstitutional because the term “misbehaviour” was overly vague and because the section gave the Government unfettered and unchannelled authority to subject civil servants to an enquiry under that Act. The appellant contended that an enquiry conducted under the Inquiries Act was more severe and offered fewer safeguards to an officer of his standing than an enquiry that could be conducted under the All‑India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1955, and that this disparity amounted to a breach of Article 14 of the Constitution. He additionally asserted that the Inquiries Act infringed Articles 16 and 20(3) of the Constitution, rendering it invalid, and that the Government had acted with malice in ordering the enquiry.

The Court held that, in most cases, it is proper and reasonable for the Government to await the outcome of a police investigation and, where that investigation is followed by an enquiry or a trial, to await the result of such proceedings before taking disciplinary action against any servant. It is also generally reasonable for the Government not to act against a servant when a police investigation finds no prima facie case. Nevertheless, the Court observed that there is no legal prohibition against the Government ordering a departmental enquiry even after a First Information Report under section 154 has been lodged and an investigation is pending. The phrase “otherwise dealt with” in section 5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure does not require that disciplinary enquiries related to alleged offences be conducted strictly according to the provisions of that Code. The Court further explained that the word “misbehaviour” in section 2 of the Inquiries Act is not vague; it denotes a lapse from the appropriate standard of conduct expected of a Government servant in the discharge of official duties. A Government servant is required to act honestly and must not use his position for personal gain, and any dishonest act therefore constitutes “misbehaviour”. It is well settled that when the Government has authority to direct an enquiry in either of two alternative modes, the existence of a more drastic and less advantageous mode does not, by itself, constitute a violation of Article 14, provided the chosen mode is not intrinsically less favorable than the alternative.

In this case, the Court observed that if a more drastic and less advantageous procedure were applied to a government servant while a more advantageous and less drastic procedure were applied to another servant in a similar situation, such differential treatment would infringe Article 14 of the Constitution. The Court, however, held that the procedures and provisions contained in the Inquiries Act were not, in substance, more drastic or less advantageous than those laid down in the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1955. Consequently, the Court concluded that the use of the Inquiries Act did not violate the equality principle guaranteed by Article 14. The Court further noted that Article 16 guarantees every citizen equal opportunity in matters of employment or appointment to any office under the State, but this guarantee does not prohibit the State from taking disciplinary action against a citizen who occupies a governmental post. The Court explained that the possibility that disciplinary action might result in the loss of a promotion does not constitute a denial of the equality of opportunity protected by Article 16. The Court also examined the claim that requiring an accused to make a defence amounted to self‑incrimination under Article 20(3). It held that the provision merely obliges the accused to present a defence and does not compel him to become a witness against himself. Moreover, the accused remains free to abstain from making any defence if he so chooses. The Court found that the Government of Punjab had not acted with malice in ordering an enquiry against the appellant. It observed that the Government had appointed a High Court judge to act as Commissioner for the enquiry, which gave a reasonable expectation that the enquiry would be conducted fairly and impartially.

The Court further stated that the appellant possessed a statutory right to appeal against the findings of the Inquiry Officer. It added that the imposition of any penalty required the concurrence of either the Public Service Commission or the Central Government. When a penalty was imposed by the State Government with the necessary concurrence of the Public Service Commission, the appellant was entitled to appeal the penalty to the Central Government. Accordingly, even if the Punjab Chief Minister harboured personal hostility toward the appellant, the Chief Minister could not lawfully disadvantage the appellant by preferring the enquiry prescribed under the Inquiries Act over a criminal trial. The Court referred to the decisions in Sarder Kapur Singh v. Union of India [1960] 2 S.C.R. 569 and State of Assam v. Bimal Kumar Pandit [1964] 2 S.C.R. 1. The judgment then proceeded to the civil appellate jurisdiction, noting that the appeal (Civil Appeal No. 75 of 1963) arose by special leave from the Punjab High Court judgment and decree dated 9 August 1961 in Civil Writ No. 954 of 1961. The appellant appeared personally. The Court recorded the names of counsel for the parties and dated the judgment 2 August 1963. Delivered by Justice Das Gupta, the Court recounted that the appellant, R. P. Kapur, had been appointed to the Indian Civil Service nearly twenty‑five years earlier, had continued in service after independence, and had been serving the Government of Punjab since 1948.

The appellant had been employed by the Government of Punjab, and on 18 July 1959, while holding the position of Commissioner of the Ambala Division, he was placed under suspension. Prior to that suspension, two criminal complaints had been filed against him. The first complaint was lodged on 10 December 1958 by an individual identified as M L Sethi. That complaint named the appellant and his mother‑in‑law, Kaushalya Devi, and alleged that they had committed offences punishable under sections 420 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code. The second complaint originated from a person named M L Dhingra. That complaint alleged that the appellant had committed offences under section 55(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947, and under sections 167, 168, 406, 420 and 465 of the Indian Penal Code. The complaint of M L Dhingra was presented to the Chief Minister of Punjab, Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon, on 27 February 1959. Following instructions from the Chief Minister, a first‑information report was entered at Chandigarh Police Station on 4 March 1959 based on that complaint. Subsequent to these two complaints, additional criminal proceedings were instituted against the appellant and certain members of his family during the year 1960. One of these later proceedings was based on a report prepared by Daryao Singh, who was an Inspector of Police in the Criminal Investigation Department at Karnal. That report, dated 1 November 1959, alleged that the appellant had committed offences under sections 166 and 167 of the Indian Penal Code, read together with section 109 of the same Code, and also alleged an offence under section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The report was forwarded by Inspector Singh to the Secretary of the Orphanage Advisory Board in Chandigarh because the alleged offences were said to be connected with the affairs of that Board. The Board, in turn, transmitted the report to the police for the registration of a case and for investigation, but that transmission did not occur until 25 May 1960. The criminal matters that were pending before various magistrates in Punjab were, at the appellant’s request, transferred by this Court to criminal courts that are subordinate to the Allahabad High Court, so that they could be tried in the State of Uttar Pradesh. Two of those transferred cases involved the appellant’s wife. One case, filed under section 107 of the Indian Penal Code, and another case, filed under section 145 of the Indian Penal Code, both listed the appellant’s wife as an accused. Those two cases were concluded in March and April 1961, when an Additional District Magistrate at Saharanpur issued orders dropping the proceedings. In the matter that arose from Dhingra’s complaint, the investigation was apparently completed in August‑September 1959. In February 1960 the Punjab Government sought, from the Central Government, the requisite sanction to prosecute the appellant under section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947, as mandated by section 6(c) of that Act. The Central Government was hesitant to grant such sanction. On 2 June 1960 the Home Department of the Government of India wrote to the Chief Secretary of the Punjab Government, expressing the view that a prosecution under that provision was unlikely to succeed and noting that the appellant was already facing two criminal cases. The letter further observed that initiating a third prosecution at that stage might appear to be the pursuit of a person already in serious legal difficulty, and it invited the Punjab Government to consider whether it was necessary to proceed with that particular case at that time.

The Central Government communicated that proceeding with the prosecution was unlikely to succeed and noted that Kapur was already involved in two criminal cases and would soon face trial in those matters; consequently, initiating a third prosecution could appear to be pursuing a man already in serious difficulty. In the same correspondence, the Punjab Government was asked to consider whether it was necessary to continue with that particular case at that time. The Punjab Government apparently did not press its request for sanction, and on 25 May 1961 the police submitted a final report under section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, requesting that the case be consigned to the record as untraced. On that very day the magistrate issued an order directing the case to be entered in the record as untraced. A parallel police report, also dated 25 May 1961, related to the case arising from the Daryao Singh report; the magistrate similarly ordered that case to be filed as untraced and sent to the record. The following day, 26 May 1961, an order issued in the name of the Governor of Punjab directed that an inquiry be launched against the appellant under the Public Servants (Inquiries) Act, 1850, which will later be referred to in this judgment as “the Inquiries Act.” The order stated: “Whereas the Governor of Punjab is of opinion that there are good grounds for making a formal and public inquiry into the truth of certain imputations of misbehaviour against Shri R.P. Kapur, I.C.S., Commissioner (under suspension); now, therefore, in exercise of powers conferred by section 2 of the Public Servants’ (Inquiries) Act, 1850, the Governor of Punjab hereby orders a formal and public inquiry to be made into the truth of the imputations of misbehaviour, the substance of which has been drawn up in articles of charge, against the said officer.”

It was noted that some of the charges derived from the allegations contained in Dhingra’s complaint, while the remaining charges stemmed from allegations in the Daryao Singh report; a total of eight articles of charge were prepared for the inquiry. On the same date, the Governor issued another order appointing Mr. Justice D. Falshaw, then a puisne judge of the High Court of Punjab, as the Commissioner responsible for conducting the inquiry. The appellant was duly served with notice of these orders and of the articles of charge, and he was informed that the inquiry was scheduled to commence on 28 August 1961. Subsequently, on 18 July 1961, the appellant filed an application before the Punjab High Court under article 226 of the Constitution, seeking a declaration that the Governor’s order of 26 May 1961 directing the inquiry be struck down. The petition also asked that the order appointing Mr. Justice Falshaw as Commissioner be set aside and that appropriate writs of quo warranto and prohibition be issued against the Commissioner to prevent the inquiry from proceeding.

The appellant had asked that the order appointing Mr. Justice Falshaw as Commissioner for the inquiry be set aside, that the notice served on him be nullified, that a writ of habeas corpus be issued against Mr. Justice Falshaw, and that a writ of prohibition be directed to the Commissioner to stop the inquiry. It was clear that the principal relief he really wanted was the setting aside of the order to hold the inquiry; the other prayers were, in the Court’s view, either unnecessary or irrelevant. The petition contained many allegations, but the main reasons on which the appellant based his prayer could be grouped as follows. First, he claimed that no inquiry could be conducted under the Inquiries Act because first‑information reports had already been filed under the Code of Criminal Procedure for the acts described in the charge sheets. Second, he asserted that section 2 of the Inquiries Act was invalid because the term “misbehaviour” was too vague, thereby granting the Government unchecked and unlimited power to subject civil servants to inquiries under that provision. Third, he argued that an inquiry under the Inquiries Act was harsher and less favorable to an officer such as himself than an inquiry that could be conducted under the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1955, and that this disparity violated the equality guarantee of Article 14 of the Constitution. Fourth, he maintained that the Inquiries Act contravened Articles 16, 21 and 20 (3) of the Constitution and was therefore void. Fifth, he contended that the Government had acted in bad faith in ordering the inquiry. The High Court dismissed all of the appellant’s arguments and rejected his petition. Consequently, the appellant filed the present appeal, having obtained special leave to do so. In support of the appeal, he reiterated every ground that had been raised before the High Court. After the counsel for both sides had finished presenting their arguments, the Court reserved judgment to consider the matters raised. During that consideration the Court noticed an additional issue that had not been raised by the appellant: whether, under section 2 of the Public Servants (Inquiries) Act, 1850, the Punjab Government possessed the authority to direct an inquiry under that Act. On its face, that question seemed to have been answered by the Supreme Court’s earlier decision in Sardar Kapur Singh v. Union of India. The Court, however, felt that some aspects of the question required further examination by a larger bench, and therefore referred the matter to a seven‑judge bench. That larger bench has now delivered its judgment, concluding by majority that the Punjab Government did have the competence to direct the inquiry. With that point now finally settled, the Court proceeded to examine the original grounds raised by the appellant in support of his appeal.

The appellant, who had presented his own arguments with noted skill and restraint, raised what was described as the first and most important question of law. He asserted that disciplinary proceedings could not be initiated against a Government servant for any act for which a first information report had been recorded under section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. During the course of his submissions the appellant expanded his claim and contended that no inquiry other than one conducted under the Code of Criminal Procedure could be entertained at all with respect to any offence punishable under the Indian Penal Code or any other law. To support this broader proposition he relied upon section 5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. That provision, in its first sub‑section, states that all offences under the Indian Penal Code shall be investigated, inquired into, tried, and otherwise dealt with in accordance with the provisions that follow; the second sub‑section provides that all offences under any other law shall be investigated, inquired into, tried and otherwise dealt with according to the same provisions, subject, however, to any enactment then in force that regulates the manner or place of investigating, inquiring into, trying or otherwise dealing with such offences. The appellant placed particular emphasis on the phrase “otherwise dealt with” and argued that the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure must therefore be applied not only to the investigation, inquiry or trial of offences but also to any other method of dealing with them, including an inquiry into the truth of the allegations for the purpose of disciplinary action. The Court did not accept the significance that the appellant attached to those words. In the Court’s view, the expression “otherwise dealt with” referred to the other modes of dealing with offences that are contained in the Code apart from the provisions for investigation, inquiry or trial. Such additional provisions are found, for example, in Chapters IV and V of the Code. An illustration of this is the power conferred by section 54 of the Code, which authorises a police officer to make an arrest without a warrant in certain circumstances even before any investigation, inquiry or trial related to an offence has begun. Although it was not necessary to enumerate every instance, the Court found it clear that the wording of section 5 does not support the conclusion that inquiries connected with disciplinary proceedings, which are based on alleged offences by a Government servant, must also be conducted in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure. Moreover, the appellant further argued that once a first information report had been recorded under section 154 of the Code, any inquiry conducted under the Inquiries Act or any other rules for disciplinary action should be held to be barred. The argument could be expressed in the following terms: Once a

The Court observed that once a first information report was lodged under section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the investigation into the correctness of the allegations recorded in that report had to proceed under Chapter Fourteen of the same Code. Section 173 required that every such investigation be completed without unnecessary delay, and that upon completion the officer in charge of the police station forward to the magistrate empowered to take cognizance of the offence a report detailing the results of the investigation. The forwarded report could either request the magistrate to take cognizance of an offence for which, in the opinion of the investigating police, the accused appeared to have committed a prima facie offence, or it could state that no prima facie case had been established. The Court noted that situations could arise where, although an offence had been committed in the view of the investigating officer, no clue to the identity of the culprit was found, or the identified culprit could not be traced. The appellant urged that where the police investigation produced a prima facie case against a government servant, the ultimate determination of truth or falsity of the allegations should be made by the inquiries or trials that would follow in the criminal courts. Conversely, the appellant argued that if the police officer found that no prima facie case existed, it would be reasonable to conclude that the truth of the allegations had not been established. In either circumstance, the appellant contended, there was no scope for a departmental inquiry to investigate the truth of the alleged offence by a government servant. The Court found it initially reasonable to think that once a first information report was recorded against a government servant for a cognizable offence, the truth of the allegation should be ascertained only by a criminal court inquiry or trial when a prima facie case was found and a charge‑sheet was submitted, after which no further inquiry in the same matter was required. Similarly, the Court agreed that if the police investigation concluded that no charge‑sheet was warranted, the allegations should be regarded as untrue or doubtful, and no further inquiry was necessary. The Court was convinced that, in most cases, it would be proper and reasonable for the Government to await the result of the police investigation and, if that investigation was followed by a criminal inquiry or trial, to await the outcome of such proceedings before deciding whether to take any disciplinary action against its servant. It was also deemed proper and reasonable for the Government generally not to initiate disciplinary action when the police investigation found no prima facie case against the servant.

The Court observed that, although it is a reasonable practice for the Government to await the results of a police investigation before taking any disciplinary action against a servant, there is no legal prohibition against the Government ordering a departmental inquiry even when a first information report under section 154 has been filed and an investigation is pending. The appellant then contended that the expression “mis‑behaviour” in section 2 of the Inquiries Act is vague, thereby rendering the Act invalid. The Court explained that “mis‑behaviour” by a government servant necessarily denotes a failure to meet the proper standards of conduct expected in the performance of official duties. The appellant argued that, at the time the Act was enacted in 1850, there was no clearly defined standard of conduct, and consequently neither the Government nor its servants could be certain what would constitute “mis‑behaviour”. The Court rejected this argument as misconceived. It held that even in the absence of detailed instructions, it is undeniable that a government servant is required to act honestly and must not exploit his position for personal gain or for the benefit of others. Any dishonest act, including the use of official position for enrichment, clearly falls within the meaning of “mis‑behaviour”. Accordingly, the Court could not accept the appellant’s claim that the term is vague. The Court further noted that even if the appellant were correct that no specific standard existed in 1850, that argument would no longer be relevant because a clear set of conduct rules had later been established in the Government Servants’ Conduct Rules. Moreover, at the time of the 1961 order, the appellant himself was governed by the All India Services Conduct Rules of 1954. Consequently, the challenge to the validity of the Inquiries Act on the basis that “mis‑behaviour” is an indeterminate concept must fail. The appellant’s next contention was that the Act is discriminatory because its procedures and provisions are more severe and less favourable than those contained in the 1955 Rules. The Court acknowledged the settled principle that when the Government has the discretion to choose between two modes of inquiry, and one mode is more severe and less favourable, using the harsher mode could violate Article 14 of the Constitution, since a less severe alternative might be applied to a similarly situated servant. However, the Court was not persuaded that the procedures and provisions of the Inquiries Act are in substance more severe and less advantageous than those of the 1955 Rules, as asserted by the appellant.

The Court observed that the provisions of the Inquiries Act were not, in substance, less advantageous or more drastic than the provisions of the 1955 Rules, contrary to the appellant’s contention. The Court referred to the earlier decision in Sardar Kapur Singh’s case, where a similar argument had been raised. In that case the Court had compared the Inquiries Act with Rule 55 of the Classification Rules and had held that there was no substantial difference between the two modes of enquiry. The Court noted that the procedure of enquiry under the 1955 Rule was practically the same as the procedure under Rule 55 of the Classification Rules. Facing that precedent, the appellant attempted to persuade the Court that the enquiry under the 1955 Rules offered advantages that were not available under the Inquiries Act. The appellant listed four such alleged advantages. First, sub‑rule 4 of Rule 5 of the 1955 Rules allowed a government servant to request access to official records for preparing his written statement, a right that he claimed did not exist in the Inquiries Act. Second, sub‑rule 7 required that a Board of Inquiry contain at least one member who was an officer of the service to which the servant belonged, a requirement he said was absent from the Inquiries Act. Third, sub‑rule 9 provided that the member of the service charged with the offence would be supplied with a copy of the report of enquiry, a provision he claimed the Inquiries Act lacked. Fourth, the proviso to sub‑rule 9 stated that if the punishing authority disagreed with any part of the findings of the Board or the Inquiry Officer, the points of disagreement and a brief statement of the grounds would also be communicated to the member of the service, a feature he said the Inquiries Act did not contain.

The Court held that these provisions did not create any substantial difference between an enquiry conducted under the Inquiries Act and one conducted under the 1955 Rules. While accepting that the Inquiries Act does not contain an express provision granting access to official records for preparing a written statement, the Court saw no reason to conclude that such access would be denied in practice. The Court pointed out that sub‑rule 4 of the 1955 Rules permits the authority to refuse access “if, in the government’s opinion, such records are not strictly relevant to the case or it is not desirable in the public interest to allow such access.” The Court reasoned that a similar discretion would be exercised by the authority conducting an enquiry under the Inquiries Act, and therefore the officer would be afforded proper facilities to access official records unless the records were deemed irrelevant or contrary to the public interest. Consequently, the Court concluded that there would be no real difference in practice between the two regimes concerning access to records, and that the other alleged advantages did not affect the substantive equality of the two enquiry procedures.

In an inquiry conducted under the Inquiries Act, the authority that presides over the inquiry is expected to provide the officer with appropriate access to official records for the purpose of preparing his written statement, unless the records are deemed irrelevant or the government objects on the ground that public interest would be compromised by such access. The Court was confident that the same practical approach would apply in an inquiry under the Inquiries Act as does the rule‑based system of 1955, and therefore no material difference would arise in actual practice regarding access to official documents. The appellant’s argument that a service officer would benefit from participation of another officer of the same service in a 1955 Rule inquiry, a benefit that he would allegedly lack under the Inquiries Act, was found to be mistaken. Sub‑rule 5 of Rule 5 merely gives the government discretion to appoint either a Board of Inquiry or an Inquiry Officer, or, if it deems it unnecessary, to conduct the inquiry in any manner it considers appropriate. Sub‑rule 7, which requires at least one member of a Board of Inquiry to be an officer of the service to which the accused belongs, is triggered only when a Board is actually appointed; it does not guarantee that such participation will always occur. Moreover, there is no legal restriction preventing the government from appointing an officer of the same service to conduct an inquiry even when the Inquiries Act governs the proceedings. Consequently, the provision in sub‑rule 7 does not create a substantive distinction between the two modes of inquiry. Turning to sub‑rule 9, the rule obliges the punishing authority to furnish the member of the service with a copy of the inquiry report after it reaches a provisional conclusion that a penalty such as dismissal, removal, compulsory retirement, or reduction in rank is warranted. Although the Inquiries Act lacks an identical requirement, the officer is nonetheless entitled to obtain a copy of the report under Article 311(2) of the Constitution whenever dismissal, removal, or reduction in rank is contemplated. The only variance, therefore, is that under the 1955 Rules the officer may receive a copy of the report even when the contemplated penalty is compulsory retirement, a scenario for which Article 311(2) does not apply.

In this case the Court observed that when the proposed penalty was compulsory retirement, the constitutional provision of Article 311(2) did not apply. Consequently, if an inquiry was conducted under the Inquiries Act, the officer would not receive a copy of the inquiry report in such a situation. The Court noted that it was unnecessary to decide whether this difference violated Article 14 because the penalty of compulsory retirement, which could be imposed under the 1955 Rules, could not be imposed on an officer in the position of the present appellant due to the restrictions of Article 314 of the Constitution. The appellant had not disputed that this consequence followed from Article 314. The Court further pointed out that, just as the proviso to sub‑rule 9 requires the points of disagreement and the grounds for those disagreements to be communicated to the officer when the punishing authority disagrees with findings in the report, the same result is produced by Article 311(2) of the Constitution. This principle had been affirmed by this Court in the recent decision of State of Assam v Bimal Kumar Pandit. Accordingly, the Court found no merit in the appellant’s claim that the procedure and provisions of the Inquiries Act were less advantageous or more harsh than an inquiry under the 1955 Rules, and it rejected the contention that the Inquiries Act violated Article 14.

The Court then examined the appellant’s further contention that the Inquiries Act contravened Articles 16 and 20(3) of the Constitution. Regarding Article 16, which guarantees all citizens equality of opportunity in matters of employment or appointment to any office under the State, the Court explained that this guarantee does not prevent disciplinary action against a citizen who holds a government office. The fact that such disciplinary action might result in the loss of a promotion opportunity does not amount to a denial of equality of opportunity in employment or appointment. Concerning Article 20(3), which protects a person accused of an offence from being compelled to be a witness against himself, the appellant argued that Section 15 of the Inquiries Act, which requires a person accused to make a defence, infringed this protection. The Court held that Section 15 does not compel the accused to testify; rather, it obliges the inquiring authority to invite the accused to present a defence. If the accused chooses not to make any defence, Section 15 cannot force him to do so. Therefore, the argument that the provision violated Article 20(3) was without foundation.

The Court held that the contention that the Inquiries Act violates Article 16 or Article 20(3) of the Constitution is entirely mistaken and therefore rejected. The next issue before the Court was whether the Government of Punjab acted with dishonest intent in ordering the inquiry. The appellant asserted that he had incurred the intense displeasure and hostility of the Punjab Chief Minister, Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon, and that the Chief Minister was determined to ruin him. According to the appellant, the Chief Minister initiated criminal prosecutions not only against the appellant but also against his wife, mother and mother‑in‑law through his own agents, hoping that they would be convicted, imprisoned and that the appellant would then be dismissed on the basis of his own conviction. The cases were transferred for trial to courts in Uttar Pradesh, and on 1 May 1961 two of the cases were disposed of in favour of the prosecution. The Chief Minister, fearing that the remaining criminal cases might also end in the appellant’s acquittal or discharge, devised a plan to launch an inquiry under the Inquiries Act based on the allegations contained in the two matters – Dhingra’s complaint and Daryao Singh’s report. He was apprehensive that, if charge‑sheets were filed in court, they might be sent to courts outside Punjab and consequently lead to the appellant’s acquittal. The appellant contended that the order stating the Governor’s opinion that there were sufficient grounds for a formal public inquiry into the truth of certain allegations of misconduct was false, and that the real purpose of the inquiry was to harass, humiliate and, if possible, impose disciplinary penalties on him regardless of whether the allegations were true. The appellant was unable to produce any material before the Court explaining why the Punjab Chief Minister should be personally hostile toward him. Nevertheless, several circumstances suggested such hostility. The appellant repeatedly pointed out that the Chief Minister had taken it upon himself to accept a serious complaint against a senior officer such as the appellant and had directed the Additional Inspector‑General to take immediate action to seize papers from the concerned government departments and from Shri Dhingra, and to prepare a prima facie report. In an earlier decision of this Court, it was observed that the reasons for the Chief Minister’s endorsement of Dhingra’s complaint and for referring the matter to the Additional Inspector‑General rather than to the officer in charge of the police station were unknown.

The Court observed that the Chief Minister had ordered the seizure of the relevant documents even before a prima facie report had been prepared concerning an alleged offence that was said to have occurred five years earlier. The Court then emphasized that such matters were ones on which only the Chief Minister could provide clarification, and that the Chief Minister bore a duty to the Court to file an affidavit describing, as far as he could recall, the correct factual position. Although the appellant repeatedly drew attention to the Chief Minister’s endorsement of Dhingra’s complaint and cited the Court’s earlier observations on that endorsement, the Chief Minister failed to file any affidavit, either on the earlier occasion or on the present one, that might illuminate the circumstances under which he had acted in this unusually manner.

Another troubling circumstance noted by the Court was that, after the investigation of Dhingra’s case was concluded, the Government of Punjab sought sanction from the Central Government to prosecute the appellant under section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The Punjab Government waited roughly a year after the Central Government expressed its reluctance to grant the sanction before taking any further step. The Court found the police’s conduct after this prolonged delay to be irregular. Rather than filing a charge‑sheet for the offences that the police had determined the appellant had committed, the Police Inspector simply requested that the Magistrate record the case as “untraced.” The Court described this procedure as highly unusual and apparently without legal basis. The Advocate‑General for Punjab could not explain how a case could be treated as “untraced.” While it is possible for a case to be untraced when the perpetrator cannot be located, the Court did not understand how the case could be designated untraced when the alleged offender had already been identified.

The Court expressed surprise that the police would make such a request to the Magistrate in the specific context of Dhingra’s case, and even greater surprise that the Magistrate complied readily with the police’s request. The Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department, in his report to the Magistrate, stated that the decision to treat the case as untraced had been made after consultation with “higher authorities.” The Magistrate apparently accepted this explanation, although the Court was not informed as to the identity of those higher authorities. On the same date, 25 May 1961, the police submitted a similar report to the Magistrate in a separate case that had been instituted on the basis of a report by Daryao Singh. In that instance, the Magistrate also promptly ordered the case to be treated as untraced. Daryao Singh’s report, dated 1 November 1959, alleged that during the investigation of another matter he had discovered that several offences mentioned in his report had been committed by the appellant. The Court noted these parallel procedural actions and highlighted the consistency with which the police and the Magistrate applied the “untraced” designation in both matters.

There was a delay of more than six months before the report was finally forwarded to the police. The record does not enable a clear determination of the date on which the police investigation was completed, although it is undisputed that the investigation had indeed been concluded. It is also unknown whether the investigating officer found sufficient material to justify the filing of a charge‑sheet. What is clear from the material before the Court is that on 25 May 1961—exactly one year after the first‑information report had been lodged and one year and six months after Daryao Singh had prepared his report—the Magistrate acceded to a request made by the police and ordered that the case be treated as untraced. The appellant naturally placed great emphasis on the conduct of the police in relation to these two matters. He questioned why the “higher authorities,” whose directions the police were following, decided to categorize the cases as untraced while simultaneously initiating an enquiry under the Inquiries Act concerning some of the very same allegations. He further asked why, if the Government’s purpose was to discover the truth of the accusations, it chose to abandon the ordinary and straightforward method of a court investigation in favour of the comparatively unusual procedure of an enquiry under the Inquiries Act.

The learned Advocate‑General did not attempt to answer the appellant’s specific questions; instead, he argued that when the Government has two alternative avenues for ascertaining the truth of the allegations, the mere selection of one method over the other does not, by itself, indicate bad faith. The appellant, however, fervently maintained that, viewed against the backdrop of the earlier criminal proceedings instituted against him, the manner in which the Chief Minister dealt with Dhingra’s complaint, the fact that five criminal cases involving the appellant or his associates had been transferred to courts in Uttar Pradesh, and the further circumstance that, at the date of this hearing, all of those cases had been resolved in the appellant’s favour, it is reasonable to infer that the enquiry under the Inquiries Act was adopted more as a weapon of persecution rather than as a genuine attempt to uncover the truth of the allegations against him. Even assuming that these facts alone might provide some basis for such a conclusion, the Court is of the opinion that, when they are considered together with the other circumstances that have been brought to its attention, that inference is not justified. The Government has appointed a judge of the High Court of Punjab to conduct the enquiry, and it is reasonable to conclude that the enquiry will be conducted fairly and impartially. It is true, as the appellant has pointed out, that the Government is not in law bound to accept the

In this case, the Court observed that the report prepared by the Inquiring Authority was not the sole determinant of the Government’s power to levy a sanction upon the appellant. The Court emphasized that any authority the Government might exercise to impose a penalty was expressly confined by the provisions contained in the Rules of 1955. Consequently, the Court pointed out that the appellant retained a statutory right to appeal any adverse finding, as these Rules provided a clear mechanism for such appeals. The Court further explained that the range of penalties available under Rule 3 was limited to those enumerated therein. Among these, penalty number 5, which prescribed compulsory retirement with a proportionate pension, was deemed unavailable to the appellant because Article 314 of the Constitution prohibited such a measure. The remaining two penalties listed in clauses 6 and 7 of Rule 3—dismissal from service or removal from service—could be imposed only by an order issued by the Central Government, not by the State Government alone.

The Court then turned to the penalties that the State Government could impose, noting that Rule 6 required that no order imposing any such penalty could be issued without first consulting the Public Service Commission. In the event of a disagreement between the State Government and the Public Service Commission, the matter was to be referred to the Central Government, whose decision would be final. Accordingly, the Court held that even if the Inquiring Authority were to find the appellant not guilty of some or all of the charges, the Government could not impose any penalty unless the Public Service Commission, or alternatively the Central Government, concurred with that assessment. The Court added that where a penalty was imposed by the State Government with the Commission’s concurrence, the appellant possessed a right of appeal to the Central Government. The circumstances under which the State Government might withhold an appeal were set out in Rule 14, and the Court found that those provisions did not obstruct a proper and reasonable exercise of the appeal right. Considering all these statutory safeguards, the Court concluded that even an unfavourable stance by the Punjab Chief Minister could not translate into misuse of the Inquiries Act to cause harm to the appellant. Hence, the Court rejected the appellant’s claim that the Inquiries Act was employed merely as a tool for harassment, humiliation, or the imposition of penalties, and it also rejected the allegation that the Governor’s statement regarding the need for a public inquiry was false. The Court held that the appellant had not demonstrated that the Government of Punjab acted in bad faith in ordering the inquiry, and therefore the inquiry could continue despite the pending criminal complaint against Dhingra.

In this case, the Court observed that the appellant had filed a complaint before the First Class Magistrate in Chandigarh, asserting that the case instituted against him by Dhingra was false and that Dhingra, by lodging that complaint, had committed offences punishable under sections 93, 204, 211 and 385 of the Indian Penal Code. The Court was informed that the trial of this criminal complaint was presently ongoing before a Magistrate’s Court in Uttar Pradesh. The appellant argued that the proceeding of the inquiry ordered under the Inquiries Act against him would constitute contempt of the criminal court. His submission was that, because his complaint alleged that Dhingra’s allegations were false, the criminal court was engaged in ascertaining the truth of those accusations, and that a parallel inquiry under the Inquiries Act would require hearing the same witnesses and addressing the same questions, thereby interfering with the criminal court’s proper determination and amounting to contempt. The Court stated that it was not necessary to adjudicate the precise question of whether a concurrent inquiry would amount to contempt for the purposes of the present appeal. Nonetheless, the Court expressed the view that it was wholly undesirable for an inquiry under the Inquiries Act to be conducted while the criminal trial was in progress. No specific reason had been shown to make the immediate commencement of the inquiry essential or otherwise advisable. Accordingly, the Court held that the inquiry should not be permitted to proceed until such time as the appellant’s criminal complaint against Dhingra was finally disposed of. Having reached this conclusion, the Court affirmed that the High Court had rightly declined to grant the writs sought by the appellant seeking to quash the Government’s order for inquiry and the other reliefs pleaded in the petition. Therefore, the Court directed that the inquiry under the Inquiries Act must remain stayed until the criminal complaint is completely resolved, ordered that each party bear its own costs, and dismissed the appeal.