High Court Declares Unjustified Job Termination Without Investigation as 'Death Sentence' for Employee

Jaipur (The Uttam Hindu): The Rajasthan High Court has made an important remark that dismissal from a job is like a 'death sentence' for an employee. The court stressed that no one can be fired from a job by merely issuing a show cause notice, but it is mandatory to follow a proper investigation process for this. This remark was made during the hearing of a petition filed against the dismissal of a government employee from his job.

A bench of Justice Vineet Kumar Mathur directed the reinstatement of a physical training instructor (PTI) who was dismissed without a chargesheet or disciplinary inquiry, reports Live Law. The court made it clear that an order of dismissal from service is a serious step and must be passed only after a completely fair and proper inquiry to avoid punishing innocent persons.

What is the whole matter?

In fact, the petitioner PTI was dismissed from service on the basis of a mere show cause notice accusing him of obtaining the job through fraud. The trainer had argued in his petition that he was dismissed from the job without issuing any charge sheet or conducting any disciplinary inquiry, which is a violation of the principles of natural justice.

The petitioner was appointed in the year 2023 and a show cause notice was issued to him in 2024. The state government did not consider the reply given by the petitioner satisfactory and issued an order to terminate his services.

The petitioner argued in the court that all the documents submitted by him during the recruitment process were genuine and he had not committed any forgery. It was also said that the procedure prescribed under the Rajasthan Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules was not followed to take action against the petitioner.

On the contrary, the State government argued that discrepancies were found in the documents submitted by the petitioner and preliminary investigation revealed that the job was obtained fraudulently.

After hearing the arguments of both the sides, the court emphasized that no charge sheet was issued against the petitioner before terminating his service nor was any disciplinary inquiry initiated. The harsh step of termination of service was taken only on the basis of a show cause notice.

The court said, "Considering the facts and circumstances of the present case, the order of termination of service is like a death sentence. Therefore, it should be passed after proper investigation to save an innocent person from being punished." The court further said, "In the opinion of this court, the procedure adopted by the respondents (state government) is not correct. Without any investigation, the respondents have come to the conclusion that the appointment obtained by the petitioner is on the strength of forged documents. Merely conducting a one-sided investigation by the respondents and finding the fact that some documents have been fraudulently submitted by the petitioner while obtaining the job is not the correct method adopted by the respondents to terminate the services of the petitioner."

The court also highlighted that in other similar cases, the coordination bench had directed to constitute a committee to consider and the services of those petitioners were preserved. Whereas in the present case, the services of the petitioner were terminated, which shows discrimination against him. With these observations, the court quashed the order of termination of service and directed the state government to reinstate the petitioner to the job. This decision is being considered an important step towards procedural justice and protection of the rights of employees in government jobs.