A Letters Patent Bench cannot overturn a sound writ decision merely because it takes a different view

Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar restored the reinstatement of a Periyar University official removed on findings resting on conjecture, and set limits on intra-court appeals.

Periyar University removed its Deputy Registrar in 2013 on three findings: that he influenced the grant of affiliation to a college of which his wife was a managing trustee, that he was the real owner of a house in his mother's name, and that he bought a Santro car without permission. A single judge of the Madras High Court set the removal aside, holding that the findings had no evidence behind them. A Division Bench hearing an intra-court appeal reappreciated the material and restored the removal. On 16 October 2026 the Supreme Court set aside the Division Bench's judgment and restored the single judge's decision. Justice Shree Chandrashekhar, writing for himself and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, framed the question as one about appellate restraint within a High Court: can a Letters Patent Bench interfere with a writ court's decision merely because it holds a different view? The Court held that it cannot.

A complaint about assets, and a one-man commission

R. Saravanan was appointed Assistant Registrar on 2 May 2000 through the regular selection process. While he was Deputy Registrar, a complaint about his assets reached the Department of Higher Education, which in 2008 directed a preliminary inquiry and then asked the Vice Chancellor to set up a committee to look into allegations that he held wealth disproportionate to his known income. The University said he held administrative charge, threatened the three-member committee and refused to cooperate. On 19 April 2011 it set up a one-man commission headed by a retired judicial officer.

He was served a memorandum of fourteen charges on 6 June 2011, and two more were added later. The commission sat on several dates in 2011, and the University examined 22 witnesses in his presence between August 2011 and June 2012. The commission held five charges proved. By a communication of 26 July 2013 he was told that the Syndicate had accepted the report and removed him from service with effect from 27 July 2013. The removal rested on three of those charges.

The procedural objections failed

The Supreme Court first dealt with, and rejected, Saravanan's argument that the commission had been set up only to verify facts, could not frame charges, and was acting without legal authority.

The Statutes of Periyar University apply the Tamil Nadu Civil Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1955 to its employees. Rule 17(g) lets the disciplinary authority appoint an authority to inquire into charges. The commission was headed by a retired judicial officer appointed by the competent authority. Saravanan was served a memorandum of charges, replied to it, took part in the hearings, saw 22 witnesses examined in his presence, and was given a chance to respond to the adverse findings. The Court held that the commission conducted the inquiry in accordance with the Rules and that he clearly understood he was facing a disciplinary proceeding.

He had also challenged the commission's constitution in a separate writ petition in 2012. That petition was dismissed as infructuous on 12 September 2017, and he never appealed. On the general principle, the Court reiterated the distinction drawn in Viveka Nand Sethi, Neeraj Awasthi, Mohd. Sartaj and P.D. Agrawal between substantive violations of natural justice and technical ones. A procedural lapse that causes no prejudice does not invalidate an inquiry, and a court should be wary of a party trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Findings without evidence

The substantive problem lay elsewhere. On the affiliation charge, the witnesses examined said nothing about Saravanan influencing the grant of affiliation to Ganga College of Education. Apart from noting that he held a responsible post, the commission did not identify anything he had done.

On the house at Periyar Nagar, the commission found him to be the real owner because he had signed loan papers as a co-obligant without the University's permission, and because he had not produced the title deed or other documents showing that his mother was the genuine owner. On the Santro car, he admitted owning it and said he had taken a loan of ₹2,82,000 from Centurion Bank in Coimbatore and paid the monthly instalments of ₹6,434 from his salary. The charge was held proved because he could not produce permission from the University to buy the car or to take the loan.

The Court set out what an inquiry officer's role involves. A domestic inquiry is quasi-judicial. Its purpose is to find out whether the allegations are true. The inquiry officer is not a prosecutor, must not presume guilt, and must base findings only on evidence led in the inquiry. Clear proof is not required, and some evidence is enough, but a finding with no material behind it is perverse. Hearsay may be considered, but a finding cannot rest on assumptions, suppositions, surmises and conjectures.

Measured against that, the Court found that Saravanan had been found guilty without evidence and asked what worse injustice there could be than “to hang him only on hearsay”. The Syndicate's order gave no reason for accepting the report and overlooked that its findings rested on conjecture. Imposing removal without legally admissible evidence breached natural justice. The University's senior counsel, Mr Romy Chacko, argued that a writ court cannot act as an appellate court over a departmental decision. The Court said that question did not arise, because reappraising evidence is very different from finding that there is no evidence at all.

The limits of a Letters Patent appeal

The Court then turned to the central question. It traced the writ court's power to issue certiorari through Hari Vishnu Kamath, T.C. Basappa and Syed Yakoob v. K.S. Radhakrishnan, where a Constitution Bench held that a finding of fact based on no evidence is an error of law that certiorari can correct. The single judge had relied on Bharat Iron Works and Rajinder Kumar Kindra, which hold that a finding with no evidence to support it is perverse.

A Letters Patent Bench, the Court held, sits as a court of correction with the same jurisdiction as the single judge, but it must give due weight to the writ court's decision where that court has exercised its discretion on relevant considerations. It should ordinarily be slow to interfere with discretion exercised under Article 226. It may interfere only where the findings are demonstrably wrong and the error is glaring on the face of the record. There must be cogent grounds, not a minor error of fact or law. If the writ court's decision serves justice, equity and good conscience and does not offend public policy, a Letters Patent Bench under Clause 15 of the Madras Letters Patent, or similar provisions in other High Courts, cannot interfere with it. In the Court's words, a writ decision that is otherwise just and reasonable is beyond the reach of the intra-court appeal.

The Division Bench had done exactly what the Court said it should not. It reappreciated the inquiry material and concluded that documents produced by the University corroborated the commission's report. The Supreme Court held that it had interfered with a well-reasoned writ decision without any cogent and justifiable reason, in a matter where no ground for interference existed.

Order

The appeal was allowed. The Madras High Court Division Bench's judgment of 29 August 2019 in Writ Appeal No. 2329 of 2018 was set aside, and the single judge's decision in Writ Petition No. 23936 of 2013 was restored. There was no order as to costs.