CISF constable caught scaling port wall: Why court refused to reinstate him despite acquittal in criminal case

“In the present case also, we find from the order of the chief metropolitan magistrate dated September 15, 2005, the court acquitted the petitioner on the following terms: Therefore, the accused person should get the ‘benefit of doubt’ and should be acquitted accordingly,” the court said on May 22.

The order added that in the criminal trial, however, only two witnesses were examined. In the present case, the conclusions in the departmental enquiry are not founded on the same set of evidence and witnesses.

‘No scope of benefit of criminal trial extended to him’

• The submission regarding extending the benefits of the finding in the criminal trial, according to the advocate for the state-respondents, is unsustainable.
• The law by now is settled and reiterated even in the decision relied upon by the learned advocate for the appellant, that there is no bar to the simultaneous conduct of proceedings in the department and in a criminal court for the same allegation.
• It is also trite that the standard of proof in the two proceedings varies substantially.
• In the criminal trial, the charges are required to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt on the strict standard of proof based on the Evidence Act.
• In the departmental proceeding, the same charges are held proved on a preponderance of probability, wherein the standard of proof is not as stringent as in a criminal trial.
• Therefore, the law does not contemplate ipso facto benefit of an acquittal without considering whether the charges were the same, material and whether the witnesses relied upon were the same, and also whether the acquittal in the criminal trial is an honourable acquittal or an acquittal on failure of the procedural aspect in the trial.
• There is no scope for the petitioner to contend that the benefit of the criminal trial is to be extended to him.
• The petitioner, therefore, is not in a position to claim the benefit of acquittal in the criminal trial wherein the charges were considered applying the strict rules of evidence, and where only two witnesses were produced.

• In the present case, only two witnesses were examined in the criminal trail whereas in the departmental proceeding, five witnesses and two court witnesses were examined; and the charges stood corroborated on the preponderance of probability.
• The petitioner was afforded all opportunities, and no procedural lapse was pointed out. Therefore, the petitioner is not entitled to the benefit of the findings in the criminal trial.

Case of unauthorised scaling of port wall and aftermath

The plea was filed by a petitioner who was a constable in the CISF. On the intervening night on November 7 and November 8, 2022, at a time when he was on duty, he allegedly unauthorisedly scaled the boundary wall of the establishment and entered the port area. The petitioner was allegedly apprehended carrying two bundles of raw silk from the NSD Port area.

He was taken to the CISF Office, and an FIR was lodged with the Officer-in-Charge of the South Post Police Station, Kolkata. He was removed from service on March 31, 2004, after a departmental enquiry found the charges proved.

The petitioner challenged his removal on two grounds: that the enquiry was conducted in English rather than his mother tongue, and that his acquittal in a parallel criminal trial should have resulted in his reinstatement.

Representing the state, advocate Uttam Basak submitted that an issue of the proceeding being conducted in the petitioner’s mother tongue was raised seven months after the petitioner submitted his reply to the charge memo.