Acquitted of the 1993 Barh court cash theft, dismissed all the same: Patna HC upholds removal of a court peon
Justice Dr. Anshuman held that an acquittal in a criminal case is by itself no ground to disturb a departmental dismissal that rests on evidence led before the inquiry officer, closing a dispute that began when Rs 1.33 lakh of salary money vanished from a Nazarat locker.
Vijay Kumar was a peon at the Civil Court in Barh when Rs 1,33,304.33 went missing from the Nazarat locker on the night of 1 November 1993. He was arrested two days later, suspended within the fortnight, convicted in 2002, acquitted by the Patna High Court in criminal revision in 2013, and dismissed from service in 2014 anyway. On 15 October 2026 the same High Court, in its writ jurisdiction, declined to interfere with the dismissal. Justice Dr. Anshuman held that the departmental finding rested on the evidence led before the inquiry officer, that the standard of proof in a disciplinary proceeding is the preponderance of probabilities, and that acquittal in a criminal case cannot by itself unseat a punishment imposed by the disciplinary authority.
Thirty-three years from a locker to a judgment
Kumar joined the Civil Court at Patna as a Class IV employee on 2 July 1987, appointed on compassionate grounds, and was later transferred to Barh. On 1 November 1993 a sum of Rs 1,82,729 was kept in the Nazarat locker for disbursement of salaries. The next morning the Nazir found Rs 1,33,304.33 of it gone. Barh P.S. Case No. 542 of 1993 was registered under Sections 380 read with 120-B, 457 and 411 of the Penal Code. Kumar, who the respondents say was posted as night guard, was arrested on 3 November 1993 and suspended on 12 November. The departmental charge-sheet alleged that he had dishonestly removed the money using duplicate keys, amounting to theft, misconduct and dereliction of duty. In his written defence of 19 November 1994 he denied the charge, including the confession he was said to have made to the police and the seizure said to have followed it. He was represented by an advocate at the inquiry. The inquiry officer's report of 15 July 1995 found the charge proved on oral and documentary evidence.
Kumar had asked for the departmental proceeding to be stayed because of the criminal case, and the matter was then kept pending to await the trial. The trial court convicted him on 5 August 2002; his appeal was dismissed on 4 October 2012. On 29 July 2013, in Criminal Revision No. 11 of 2013, the High Court set aside the conviction and directed his release. He asked to be taken back. Instead the disciplinary authority, on reconsidering the departmental proceeding, issued a second show-cause notice on 11 December 2013 enclosing the inquiry report. He replied that the acquittal should end the matter and that he had been falsely implicated. On 12 May 2014 the District and Sessions Judge, Patna dismissed him from service.
His first writ petition was disposed of with liberty to appeal. He filed a memo of appeal on 12 December 2016. A sub-committee of two judges of the High Court allowed it on 6 February 2019 on the question of quantum of punishment and remanded the matter. The Standing Committee then took the matter up in the light of minutes dated 20 February 2019 and on 26 February 2019 resolved to reject the appeal. Its reasons, as the respondents put them: under Rule 20 of the Bihar Civil Court Staff (Class III and IV) Rules, 2009, an appeal against a major penalty lies to the Standing Committee and that power had not been delegated; a hearing by one body followed by a decision by another raised a natural justice problem; and the rules make no provision for a personal hearing at the appellate stage. The decision was not communicated to him, so he filed CWJC No. 12693 of 2019, which was allowed on 17 November 2021 with a direction to communicate the appellate decision and liberty to challenge it along with the dismissal. On 27 November 2021 he also sought his unpaid subsistence allowance. On 9 December 2021 the Registrar General conveyed that the Standing Committee had reiterated its decision and rejected the appeal. This writ petition followed, seeking to quash that communication, the underlying Standing Committee order and the dismissal, with reinstatement, consequential benefits and subsistence allowance for April 2009 to 12 May 2014.
Same charge, same witnesses, opposite results
Ms Surya Nilambari, for Kumar, put the acquittal at the centre of the case. The criminal court and the inquiry officer had looked at the same charge, the same evidence and substantially the same witnesses, she said, and the acquittal was not for a procedural flaw, hostile witnesses or want of evidence: the seizure witnesses had disowned the seizure, and the supposed confession had no connection with any discovery. The High Court in revision had itself found inconsistencies, including that the seizure lists did not record any recovery at Kumar's instance. On the authority of Ram Lal v. State of Rajasthan, Capt. M. Paul Anthony v. Bharat Gold Mines Ltd. and G.M. Tank v. State of Gujarat, she argued, where the charges, evidence, witnesses and circumstances are identical and the criminal court on full evaluation finds the charge unproved, letting the departmental punishment stand is unjust, unfair and oppressive; the labels benefit of doubt and honourable acquittal are not decisive, the substance of the criminal judgment is.
She had a list of further objections. The respondents had themselves kept the departmental proceeding in abeyance for the outcome of the criminal case and could not then treat the acquittal as irrelevant. The disciplinary authority had relied on Kuldip Singh v. State of Punjab but never did what that judgment requires, which is to decide for itself whether the confession was voluntary. The Standing Committee that finally decided the appeal never heard him, and the earlier hearing before the sub-committee could not cure that once the sub-committee's order was withdrawn. The orders were non-speaking: his pleas that he was not on duty that night, that he had been falsely implicated, that he was denied cross-examination, that the second show-cause notice did not state the proposed penalty, and that subsistence allowance had not been paid were simply not dealt with, contrary to Roop Singh Negi v. Punjab National Bank, Charan Singh v. Healing Touch Hospital and G. Vallikumari v. Andhra Education Society. The inquiry officer had relied on seizure witnesses who denied any recovery in their presence, had ignored PW-9's support for the plea that Kumar was not on duty, had never called for the duty roster, had used police investigation material without proof, had found him guilty on the basis of an original key when the charge alleged duplicate keys, and had gone to the Nazarat office himself to test the locks and keys, turning adjudicator into investigator. And he had been suspended from 12 November 1993 to 12 May 2014 but paid subsistence allowance only up to April 2009; relying on Paul Anthony and State of Bihar v. Arbind, she said “subsistence allowance is a right and not a bounty” and claimed the balance with interest.
The High Court as employer answers
Mr Piyush Lall, for the High Court and the District Judge, said acquittal does not automatically exonerate an employee; the exception applies only where the criminal and departmental proceedings rest on identical charges, evidence, witnesses and circumstances and the criminal court has acquitted on merits, and Kumar had not established that identity. The investigating officer, K.D. Kumar, was examined as departmental witness No. 11 but was never examined at the criminal trial, and the revision had been allowed, among other reasons, because the investigating officer's non-examination left the discrepancies about recovery unexplained. In the departmental inquiry, by contrast, that officer and the other police witnesses had supported the confession and the recovery. A criminal trial demands proof beyond reasonable doubt; a departmental proceeding goes on the preponderance of probabilities.
On the appeal, he said the Standing Committee had considered the matter afresh and decided it under Rule 20 of the 2009 Rules, so the sub-committee's earlier order could not bind it. After the Forty-second Amendment there is no requirement of a separate opportunity on the proposed quantum of punishment; the notice of 11 December 2013 enclosed the inquiry report and gave Kumar a chance to defend himself, which he used. He had not named a single witness he was prevented from cross-examining or shown any prejudice; he had been represented by an advocate throughout. The court's jurisdiction under Article 226 was confined to the decision-making process and did not extend to re-weighing the evidence, which included evidence of recovery of the stolen money and duplicate keys on information Kumar himself had allegedly given. Dismissal for theft of government money by a night guard using duplicate keys could not be called disproportionate.
On subsistence allowance, counsel said the District and Sessions Judge had considered the claim and on 8 April 2022 allowed it for 1 July 2009 to 16 November 2009, the period in which Kumar had marked his attendance, and refused it for the rest because he had not marked attendance as Rule 10 of the Bihar Government Servants (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 2005 requires. That order was never challenged. In any case the inquiry had ended with the report of 15 July 1995, so non-payment for a later period caused no prejudice to his defence. He relied on Southern Railway Officers Association v. Union of India, Paul Anthony, G.M. Tank and Union of India v. P. Gunasekaran.
What the court decided, and what it left unsaid
The judgment reproduces at length the passages relied on by both sides: paragraphs 28 to 30 of Ram Lal, paragraphs 34 and 35 of Paul Anthony, paragraphs 30 and 31 of G.M. Tank, paragraph 11 of Kuldip Singh, the passages from Roop Singh Negi, Charan Singh and G. Vallikumari on reasoned orders, paragraph 37 of Southern Railway Officers Association, and paragraphs 12, 13, 20 and 21 of P. Gunasekaran, which list what a High Court may and may not do when reviewing a disciplinary finding. It also sets out Rule 20 of the 2009 Rules, under which an appeal against a major penalty is to be disposed of by the Standing Committee of the High Court, and Rule 10 of the 2005 Rules, with its proviso that subsistence allowance is payable only for the period the suspended employee is present at headquarters and marks attendance.
The operative reasoning is short. It was admitted, the judge said, that Kumar was dismissed pursuant to a departmental proceeding, and equally admitted that he was convicted at trial, lost his appeal, and was acquitted only in revision. The standard of proof in a criminal case is proof beyond reasonable doubt; in a departmental proceeding it is the preponderance of probabilities. On the record, the punishment was imposed on the basis of the evidence of the witnesses examined before the inquiry officer and the findings recorded in the inquiry. The judgments discussed, he held, categorically establish that “acquittal in a criminal case, by itself, cannot be a ground for interfering” with a disciplinary punishment, and that dismissal may follow even after acquittal “provided that the findings recorded in the departmental proceeding are otherwise sustainable in law”. On that footing the court found no ground to interfere with the dismissal.
The judgment does not record a separate finding on whether the criminal and departmental evidence were identical in the Ram Lal sense, on the absence of a hearing before the Standing Committee, on the voluntariness of the confession, on the inquiry officer's inspection of the locks, or on the unpaid subsistence allowance for 2009 to 2014. Those arguments appear in the summary of submissions and the extracted precedents, and the dismissal of the petition disposes of them without discussion.
Order
The writ petition was dismissed. The order of dismissal dated 12 May 2014 passed by the District and Sessions Judge, Patna, and the Standing Committee's rejection of the appeal as communicated on 9 December 2021, stand. The judgment was reserved on 20 July 2026 and pronounced on 15 October 2026. The District Judge's order of 8 April 2022 allowing subsistence allowance for 1 July to 16 November 2009 and declining it for the later period was not challenged and remains as it was.