Pendency Of Criminal Case Not Bar To Initiate Departmental Proceedings Even If Contents Of Charge Memo And FIR Are Identical: Patna High Court

Justice Dr. Anshuman observed, “But, today on the date of final hearing, this Court is of the firm view that action under criminal justice system and under service jurisprudence may run together as the description of allegation of the service jurisprudence has been described in the second column of the charge memo on the point of entry made in the third allegation in the charge memo is only related to criminal case. The official shall be at liberty to continue the departmental and criminal proceeding simultaneously, but shall only take care that findings of a criminal case and findings of service matters should be different and their standard of provings are also different.”

The above ruling came in a writ petition filed for staying the departmental proceeding initiated against the petitioner pursuant to memo of charge dated till completion of the criminal case based on the same set of facts and charges and evidences.

The counsel appearing for the petitioner submitted that the contents of charge memo and FIR were identical and therefore, the departmental proceeding may not proceed against him till pendency of the criminal case.

The counsel appearing for the State on the other hand submitted that the second column, description of charge indicated that allegation of FIR and description of charges were two distinct matters and therefore, the proceeding may not be stopped and both proceedings may run together.

After hearing the parties as well as going through the pleadings, the question before the Court was whether the department proceeding and criminal case on the same set of allegations can run simultaneously or not.

In this regard, the Court observed, “the position of law is very clear that criminal jurisprudence tests the ingredients of the action which constitute a crime beyond all reasonable doubts, whereas, the departmental proceeding tests the imputation of the work done by the employees against the employer in violation of terms of services in which employee has to work.”

Therefore, the Court emphasized that the event may be the same, but the test for criminal jurisprudence and service jurisprudence are distinct and vary from case to case.

Accordingly, the Court disposed of the writ petition directing the authorities to proceed in accordance with law and under strict guidelines of Bihar Government Servant (Classification, Control & Appeal) Rules, 2005.

Appearance:

Advocate for the Petitioner: Mr. Amit Kumar

Advocate for the Respondents: Mr. Nilotpal Sharma

Case no.: Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No.6670 of 2018

Case Title: Ashok Kumar Sharma v State of Bihar & Anr.

LL Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Pat) 27

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