‘Punishment must suit offence’: Gauhati High Court backs ‘overworked’ SBI staffer penalised for lapse

Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Chaudhury noted various aspects in favour of the employee.

The order added that the respondent-employee has already suffered a reduction in pay scale for a year, which, in the facts and circumstances of the case, is adequate.

“What is necessary to be noted is that the punishment must suit the offence and the offender as well,” the bench noted.

Disciplinary action and single judge’s intervention

• The case originated from disciplinary action against the respondent- employee while he was serving as an assistant manager at the bank’s branch in Jorhat, Assam.
• Four charges were levelled against him involving irregularities in mobile banking registration and negligence in handling surrendered ATM cards, which reportedly led to the defalcation (fraudulent misappropriation) of a customer’s fund.
• While an initial departmental inquiry found only two charges proved, the disciplinary authority concluded that all four were established.
• Following this, a major penalty was imposed under Rule 67(f) of the Bank of India Officers’ Service Rules, 1992, involving a reduction in pay scale with a postponing effect on future increments.

Single judge’s intervention

The respondent challenged the bank’s decision. In August 2024, a single judge bench concluded that the charges were “trivial in nature” and the punishment was “highly disproportionate and harsh”.

The employer, SBI, challenged the single judge’s 2024 order, which reduced the punishment of one of the bank’s employees to only a reduction in pay to a lower scale for one year, without any cumulative effect, with no adverse effect on his future service benefits.

Bank’s stand

Appearing for the bank, advocate A K Sahewalla submitted before the Gauhati High Court that if at all the learned single judge was of the view that the respondent ought not to have been punished, the only option for him was to remand the case to the disciplinary authority to decide the matter from the stage of the vulnerability which was noticed by the learned single judge, i.e., at the stage of imposition of penalty.

He further argued that under normal circumstances, the penalty ought not to have been interfered with, more so, when the appellate authority had already diluted the rigour of the penalty which was originally imposed upon the respondent by the disciplinary authority.

Court’s findings

• We have perused the judgment impugned and the materials on record, and we find that for altering the sentence imposed upon the respondent/employee, the learned single judge was swayed by the fact that the materials in evidence to substantiate the charge against the respondent were such that interference with the quantum of punishment was required.
• The single judge was of the view that the mobile banking service was started only very recently in banks, and the employees had been working at the bleeding edge of the new computer technology.
• Training was imparted to only a few of the personnel of the bank and not to the respondent.
• The respondent, according to the single judge, was the assistant manager, who was not even entrusted with the task of the verification process, the Gauhati High Court noted.
• Considering the findings of the single judge and further reduction of the penalty, which had been reduced to a large extent by the appellate authority, we are of the view that the same is not required to be interfered with.