Acquittal in criminal case can undo departmental penalty only if both rests on substantially identical facts: Karnataka High Court

The High Court of Karnataka has observed that the acquittal of a public servant in a criminal case can affect the validity of a departmental penalty only when both the departmental inquiry and the criminal proceedings are based on substantially identical facts and circumstances.

While a criminal acquittal does not ordinarily result in the automatic setting aside of a departmental penalty, the position changes where the charges, evidence, witnesses and circumstances are identical or substantially similar, the court said.

The impact of an acquittal in a criminal case on the outcome of a departmental inquiry “would depend on the facts of each case and, more particularly, upon whether the charge, the substratum of allegations, the evidence, the witnesses and the documents in the criminal trial and the departmental inquiry are the same or substantially the same,” the court said.

“...where the acquittal is on merits, the mere phraseology employed by the criminal court, whether the accused is acquitted by extending the ‘benefit of doubt’ or because the prosecution failed to establish guilt ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, cannot, by itself, become the determinative factor for sustaining or setting aside a departmental penalty. The substance of the acquittal must prevail over its semantics,” the court observed.

A Division Bench comprising Justice M. Nagaprasanna and Justice Hema Kulkarni made the observation while setting aside the compulsory retirement of revenue inspector K. Eshwar of Ballari, who was acquitted in a 2012 bribery case but was subsequently punished departmentally on identical allegations. A penalty of permanently withholding 25% of his pension had also been imposed based on the departmental inquiry.

However, the court noted that in the criminal case, the prosecution examined 22 witnesses, including the complainant, a shadow witness and the investigating officer. In the departmental inquiry, only these three key witnesses were examined. Significantly, except for the investigating officer, neither the complainant nor the shadow witness supported the allegations in either proceeding. Thus, the very witnesses forming the foundation of the case failed to substantiate it in both forums, the court noted.

The court said that continuation of the extreme penalty of compulsory retirement based on the departmental inquiry would be “unjust and oppressive in the eye of law”, as both the departmental and criminal proceedings rested on the same charge of demand and acceptance of a bribe, the same foundational facts, substantially the same evidence, the same material witnesses and the same documents.