When may a writ court look behind a departmental inquiry? When a disciplinary finding rests on guesswork and no evidence stands behind it, the Supreme Court has held, and it can do so without re-weighing the record.
New Delhi: A university Deputy Registrar whose removal a Madras High Court Division Bench had restored has won his appeal in the Supreme Court. The Court held that a misconduct finding unsupported by evidence is perverse and open to challenge by a writ of certiorari, and that a Letters Patent Bench should disturb a Single Judge’s decision only for cogent reasons [R. Saravanan v. Periyar University, represented by its Registrar and Others].
On October 16, 2026, a Bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar allowed the appeal, set aside the Division Bench judgment of August 29, 2019 and restored the Single Judge’s decision.
Conjecture is not evidence
The Bench upheld the constitution of the one-man Commission that inquired into the Deputy Registrar’s conduct and found that the inquiry complied with the service rules. It noted that Saravanan had taken part in the inquiry and that an earlier writ challenge to the Commission had been dismissed as infructuous and never appealed. The rule requiring exhaustion of statutory remedies, the Court observed, is a rule of convenience and not a bar to writ jurisdiction.
On the merits, it held that the three charges rested on conjecture and inference. A finding recorded without supporting evidence can be challenged through a writ of certiorari, the Court held, and that is a question of law and not a re-appreciation of evidence. The Division Bench, it found, had re-appreciated the inquiry material, relied on conjecture and drawn an adverse inference against Saravanan without a legal basis.
From a complaint about assets to removal
R. Saravanan joined Periyar University as Assistant Registrar in 2000 and later became Deputy Registrar. After a complaint about his assets, the University constituted a one-man Commission headed by a retired judicial officer. The Commission found three charges proved: that he used his official position to secure affiliation for a college managed by his wife, that he acquired a house property in his mother’s name, and that he acquired a car. These were the allegations against him, and the University removed him from service in 2013.
Saravanan argued that the Commission had been set up only to verify facts and had no authority to frame charges, so the inquiry and his removal were without legal authority. A Single Judge of the Madras High Court examined the Commission’s report and found that its findings were not based on any evidence. A Division Bench in a Letters Patent Appeal later reversed that decision, re-appreciated the inquiry material and restored the removal.
The narrow rule, and its exception
Judicial review of a disciplinary finding is narrow. In State Bank of India v. A.G.D. Reddy (2023), the Supreme Court said it is not the function of a court in judicial review to re-appreciate evidence where the finding has some basis in the record. But the same line of authority recognises an exception: in Allahabad Bank v. Krishna Narayan Tewari (2017), the Court held that a finding unsupported by any evidence whatsoever, or one no reasonable person could have reached, can be examined and corrected by the writ court. Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution and the High Court’s Letters Patent supply the two layers of review in the Madras High Court.
How far a Letters Patent Bench may go
The Court accepted that a Letters Patent Bench can review facts, but said it must be slow to disturb a writ court’s discretionary decision. Citing earlier decisions, including Bharat Iron Works v. Bhagubhai Balubhai Patel (1976) and Asha Devi v. Dukhi Sao (1974), the Bench held in paragraph 29:
the Letters Patent Bench can interfere in the matter only where the findings are demonstrably erroneous
What the ruling signals
A departmental inquiry is not a criminal trial, and courts do not sit as appellate authorities over its findings: the ruling restates that settled position. It also marks where the narrow rule ends. Where the record holds no evidence for a charge, or the conclusion defies logic, a High Court exercising writ jurisdiction does not cross its limits by saying so.
The decision is equally a caution on the appellate side. An intra-court appeal should not become a second round of fact-finding, and a Division Bench that re-weighs the inquiry material to reverse a reasoned Single Judge order risks being set aside.
Case Title: R. Saravanan v. Periyar University, represented by its Registrar and Others [2026 INSC 1136]
Bench: Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar
Date of Judgment: October 16, 2026
Appearances: Advocate M.P. Parthiban (AOR) for the appellant; Senior Advocate Romy Chacko, Advocates Akshat Singh and Ashwin Romy, and Advocates-on-Record Anup Kumar and Kanika Kalaiyarasan for the respondents.