Upholding the finding of guilt against a welfare-office clerk in a scholarship-funds defalcation case but finding his compulsory retirement “exorbitant,” the Patna High Court set aside the penalty and remanded the matter, noting that he was a new incumbent who signed documents under pressure after the wrongs had already been committed by his predecessors.
Patna: The Patna High Court has declined to interfere with a departmental finding of guilt against a clerk of the Bihar SC/ST Welfare Department in a case concerning the defalcation of scholarship funds, but has held that the punishment of compulsory retirement imposed on him was “exorbitant,” setting aside the penalty orders and remanding the question of punishment to the Disciplinary Authority for a fresh decision within 90 days [Shivdani Chaudhary v. State of Bihar and Others].
Justice Dr. Anshuman partly allowed the writ petition, directing that the fresh order of punishment take into account that the petitioner was a new incumbent, unaware of wrongs already committed by his superiors and colleagues before he took charge.
The case
The petitioner, a clerk, had joined the SC/ST Welfare Office at Nawada in 2015, taking over charge from the previous clerk. Following a complaint about irregularities in the distribution of scholarships to SC/ST candidates for the year 2012-13, a preliminary enquiry was set up. The petitioner’s case was that all the irregularities in the collection, scrutiny and preparation of documents, and the decisions taken on them, had occurred before he joined, and had been committed by the District Welfare Officer and the Block Welfare Officer in connivance with the earlier office clerk; he contended that his signature had been taken on some documents, including a cheque, under pressure, and that, as a clerk, he had no reason to doubt the verification report signed by his superior. He argued that he had been made a “scapegoat.”
The petitioner was suspended, a departmental proceeding was initiated, and, after a charge memo, enquiry and second show-cause notice, the Director, SC/ST Welfare Department, imposed the punishment by an order of August 2017. His departmental appeal and revision were both rejected, and he challenged all three orders before the High Court, seeking their quashing and his reinstatement with consequential benefits. The State opposed the plea, submitting that there had been no procedural lapse or breach of natural justice, that a huge quantity of funds belonging to SC/ST welfare students had been “dwindled and defalcated,” that every opportunity had been given to the petitioner, and that the charges had been found proved.
Finding of guilt not disturbed
On the finding of guilt, the Court declined to interfere. While it acknowledged that oral evidence had not been recorded in the departmental proceeding, it observed that this was a case in which the defalcation had taken place through documents, and that every such document, along with the preliminary enquiry report, was before the Disciplinary Authority. Crucially, the Court noted, the petitioner’s own confessional statement, that he had signed the documents under the pressure of the other charge-sheeted persons, was also on record.
For that reason, the Court held, under service jurisprudence it could not accept the petitioner’s submission that he was unaware of the facts. It also noted the Disciplinary Authority’s observation that the petitioner had failed to discharge his responsibility, having neither objected to the irregularities nor informed his superiors about them. On the finding of guilt, therefore, the Court declined to interfere.
But the punishment was ‘exorbitant’
On the quantum of punishment, however, the Court took a different view. It was persuaded by one aspect: that the entire wrongdoing had been carried out by others, with mala fide intention, before the petitioner joined, that the petitioner had joined only in March 2015, and that he had “honestly accepted his situation” under which he was pressured into signing some of the documents and cheques. In that light, the Court held, the punishment of termination imposed on him “appears to be exorbitant.”
It was for this reason alone, the Court clarified, that while it was not interfering with the finding of guilt, it was setting aside the penalty. Accordingly, the Court remanded the matter on the question of punishment, setting aside the punishment order of the Disciplinary Authority, the appellate order and the revisional order, and directing the Disciplinary Authority to pass a fresh order of punishment within 90 days.
In doing so, the Court directed the authority to consider that the petitioner was the new incumbent and was “completely unaware about the things which were already done by his superiors and colleagues with whom he has taken the charge,” as well as to consider his reply to the second show-cause notice. The writ petition was allowed to that extent.
Why the judgment matters
The judgment is a useful illustration of the distinct treatment that courts give to the two separate questions in a disciplinary case: the finding of guilt, and the proportionality of the penalty. On the first, the decision reaffirms the settled position that a departmental enquiry is not a criminal trial: the standard is preponderance of probabilities, documentary material and a delinquent’s own admission can sustain a finding even without recorded oral evidence, and a court exercising writ jurisdiction will not reappreciate the evidence or sit in appeal over the disciplinary authority’s conclusion on guilt. The petitioner’s confession that he signed the documents, coupled with the finding that he neither objected nor reported the irregularities, was enough to place the guilt finding beyond the Court’s interference.
On the second, the decision reflects the principle of proportionality in service law: even where guilt is made out, the penalty must be commensurate with the gravity of the misconduct and the delinquent’s role, and a punishment that is disproportionate, or “shockingly disproportionate,” can be interfered with, ordinarily by remanding the matter for reconsideration of the penalty rather than by substituting one. Here, the Court’s finding that the petitioner was a newcomer who inherited a tainted charge and signed under pressure, while the substantive wrongdoing lay with those before him, was treated as a significant mitigating circumstance going to the quantum. The outcome, guilt intact but the penalty reopened for a proportionate reconsideration, is a familiar and important safeguard against excessive punishment in departmental proceedings.
Case Title: Shivdani Chaudhary v. State of Bihar and Others [CWJC No. 2768 of 2022]
Bench: Justice Dr. Anshuman, Patna High Court
Date of Judgment: September 21, 2026