SC upholds termination of LIC employee for absenting himself without intimation

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has upheld the termination of an LIC employee who absented himself from duty for 90 days without intimation to his employer.

A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti was hearing a plea filed by LIC against the decision of the Himachal Pradesh High Court ordering the reinstatement of the delinquent employee with all consequential benefits.

In its impugned order, the HP High Court set aside the penalty of removal from service and said that the termination order was unsustainable on the grounds of not providing due opportunity.

The disciplinary authority considered the absence from duty by the delinquent employee to be a case of abandonment of service under Regulation 39(4)(iii) read with Explanation 1 of the LIC Staff Regulation.

The termination order noted that the delinquent, who was serving as an Assistant Administrative Officer in the LIC, failed to respond to the notices issued to him and his whereabouts were not known for over 90 days.

The letters addressed to him to resume duties remained unanswered, including the chargesheet-cum-show cause notice proposing his removal from service.

Thereafter, LIC considered it to be a case of abandonment of service and by invocation of powers under Regulation 39(4)(iii) ordered from removal of the delinquent employee.

Before the apex court, the LIC contended that the delinquent was absent from duty for 90 days without intimation to his employer and since the notices addressed to him remained unanswered, conducting an inquiry into the charge of unauthorised absence was an impossibility and the employer had rightly treated it to be a case of abandonment of service and terminated him.

In its judgment, the Supreme Court noted that the delinquent employee secured fresh employment with the FCI and concealed this fact in the writ petition.

“If this vital aspect was known the High Court possibly would have taken a different. view and the respondent (employee) abandoning his job with the LIC, could have been easily inferred,” it said.

Setting aside the HP High Court decision, the apex court for suppression of the fact of subsequent employment, the delinquent employee was disentitled to equitable relief from the high court under Article 226 of the Constitution.

“Such conduct of the respondent (employee) could not have been condoned by the employer and therefore, in our assessment, treating the respondent to have abandoned his service and taking appropriate action against him, in terms of the LIC Staff Regulation, cannot be faulted,” the Supreme Court said.