Delhi High Court: In a petition filed by the petitioner seeking to quash the impugned order dated 24-04-2018 vide which services of the petitioner have been illegally terminated based upon allegations of misconduct which is ex facie punitive and stigmatic, that too without affording her an opportunity of hearing or conducting an inquiry into the alleged misconduct which is in total contravention of the Service Rules of National Film Development Corporation which are duly applicable to the Petitioner as per clause 1.15 of her appointment letter 06-07-2007 as also the cardinal principals of natural justice. Jyoti Singh, J., quashed and set aside the impugned order and directed the respondents to pay all outstanding dues of the petitioner on account of salary and other allowances for the balance tenure of about 2 years 11 months.
The petitioner was appointed as the Managing Director of the National Film Development Corporation (‘NFDC’) for a tenure of 5 years with a renewal clause. Upon completion of the first 5-year tenure, the petitioner was granted two subsequent extensions for 5 years each, the last one being from 17-04-2016 to 16-04-2021 on her merits considering her unblemished service record. However, the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity made a complaint against the NFDC alleging violations of Electronic Media Advertisement Policy and an Inspection (Special Audit) of NFDC was initiated by UOI (respondent 1) and subsequently issued a Draft Inspection Report, wherein the allegations were unfounded.
A termination order was issued against the petitioner while she was serving her third five-year tenure without affording any opportunity for hearing/inquiry. The petitioner filed a petition challenging the termination order and UOI issued a new termination order deleting a paragraph from the last order having a ‘stigmatic’ reference. Another appeal was filed by the petitioner challenging the issuance of a new notification to fill up the post of MD, NFDC, wherein the division bench stayed the operation of the notification. Thus, the present petition was filed.
The Court noted that the petitioner is primarily aggrieved by the impugned action of respondent 1, whereby her services were terminated by a punitive and stigmatic order, without affording her any opportunity of hearing or conducting an inquiry as per the Service Rules of NFDC. The moot question under consideration is whether the impugned order terminating the services of the petitioner and truncating the five-year tenure is punitive and/or stigmatic and if so, what relief is she entitled to, considering that her appointment was on a tenure basis.
Reliance was placed on Baijnath Mandal v. UOI, 2014 SCC OnLine Del 7204, wherein the Court observed that there can be no doubt that when an employee has been granted temporary status and the order of termination is stigmatic and punitive and not a discharge simpliciter, then a departmental inquiry has to precede the termination and order without an inquiry, would be violative of principles of natural justice. This has severe consequences for the employee since it gets printed and submitted with the stigmatic declaration made against him, marring his future prospects of employment.
The Court concluded that several allegations permeated the first order viz: NFDC had not adhered to the prescribed procedures relating to the release of advertisement spots to selected private channels; non-refund of 15% commission to the client Ministry; Rs. 4.29 crores charged more than actual expenditure from the Ministries; non-adherence to the standing operating procedures for co-production of films; and non-adherence to due process for utilization of funds for the restoration of films. Thus, the order was ‘founded’ on allegations and was not an innocuous or a simpliciter order of termination.
The Court remarked that the impugned order is camouflage and founded on the same allegations as there was no fresh or any other reason/ trigger for truncating the five-year tenure. There is no cause for termination as it is nobody’s case that the petitioner was otherwise unsuitable for the job. Thus, the impugned order makes a reference to the order dated 23-04-2018 which is enough to connect the dots to the allegations contained which shall inevitably affect the career prospects of the petitioner.
The Court held that despite the allegations leveled against NFDC as an organization, not a single person, other than the Petitioner, has even been blamed and even CAG found merit in the comments sent by NFDC, which is why the final report was never tabled, speaks volumes of the illegality in the action of the Respondents in terminating the Petitioner.
[Nina Lath Gupta v Union of India, 2023 SCC OnLine Del 2518, decided on 01-05-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Mr. Gurminder Singh, Senior Advocate with Mr. Harshvardhan Jha, Mr. Abhishek Chaudhary, Mr. Aman Pathak and Mr. Gurnoor Sandhu, Advocates for the Petitioner;
Ms. Archana Gaur, Advocate for the R-1/UOI.