Belief that government workers cannot be punished for doing wrong needs to stop: Bombay High Court

The widespread notion that no action can be taken against government servants for their wrongdoings should be done away with, the Bombay High Court recently said while hearing a service matter [Jaising Nivrutti Sonawane v. Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation]. .The Court was hearing an appeal filed by a former Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) bus conductor against a single-judge's order upholding a labour court award that confirmed the termination of his services..The Division Bench of Justices GS Patel and Gauri Godse noted that the single-judge rightly declined to interfere with the award of the labour court."...AP Shah J declined to interfere and in our view quite correctly so. There is such a thing as too much leniency. The approach in this country of believing that when one works for government no action can ever be taken no matter how persistently one is found to be doing wrong is an approach that needs to now stop as fast as possible," it remarked..The appellant, Jaising Sonawane, was an MSRTC bus conductor. In December 1995, he was on duty on the Pune to Borivali route when an inspection squad checked the bus at Lonavala. It found that Sonawane had wrongly punched some tickets and had an excess of ₹24.50 in his possession. Moreover, it found that the wrongly punched tickets were not mentioned in the way bill, pursuant to which a chargesheet came to be filed. After an enquiry, his services were terminated.Sonawane raised an industrial dispute and a reference came to be made to the labour court, which passed an award in February 2005 dismissing his reference, prompting him to file the petition before the High Court.The single-judge refused to interfere with the labour court's order after noting that this was not the first instance of misconduct on Sonawane's part..Before the Division Bench, counsel for the petitioner who appeared at that time made only one submission and that related to the disproportionality of the punishment. It was argued that a lenient view ought to have been taken and that a lesser punishment would serve the ends of justice.In this backdrop, the Bench stated that though proportionality was crucial in decision-making processes, it did not mean that a lenient view could be taken of every infringement."As to the generality of the proposition that proportionality is crucial in any decision making process, there cannot be any doubt. But this does not mean that every infraction has to be allowed to be got away with just a slap on the wrist, as it was. When one assesses the doctrine of proportionality, one looks not only at the immediate cause inviting punishment but also at the entire context and, in a given case, a pattern or a history of conduct especially past conduct," it stated.Replying to the petitioner's contention that there was no actual defalcation or misappropriation on his part, the Court underlined that the labour court had concluded that there was a mala fide intention on Sonawane's part."The order of the Labour Court is abundantly clear. In paragraph 12 the Labour Court found that there was a mala fide intention on Sonawane’s part to use these six tickets for a return journey. In other words, this means that there was some illicit intention for the journey in one direction. The argument by Mr Govilkar that there was no actual defalcation or misappropriation is less than impressive. It means that unless somebody actually commits theft, no action can be taken even if the person is apprehended while in the process of attempting a wrong doing," it said.Therefore, it saw no reason to interfere with the single-judge's order and dismissed the appeal..Advocates RV Govilkar, Mihir Govilkar and S Khan appeared for the appellant.Advocates GS Hegde and PM Bhansali appeared for MSRTC..[Read Order]