Mumbai: The Bombay High Court refused to quash the penalty imposed on Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel observing that knocking on the doors of a woman at odd hours asking for a lemon is “unbecoming” of a CISF personnel.
The court also noted that the CISF constable had alcohol before the said incident and was also aware that his colleague, the woman’s husband, was away on election duty in West Bengal, and that she was alone with her six-year-old daughter.
The HC was hearing a plea filed by the constable challenging the action taken by his superiors in CISF between July 2021 and June 2022 imposing a penalty on him for misconduct. As penalty, his salary was reduced for three years during which he would also not get any increment as punishment.
According to the complaint, on the intervening night of April 19 and April 20, 2021, at their official residential quarters, the constable knocked on the doors of his neighbour's house in which the complainant woman and her six-year-old daughter lived. She said she got afraid and informed him that her husband was away and that he should not trouble her. He left only after being warned and threatened by the woman. Constable advocate Pankaj Vijayan, however, claimed that he was feeling unwell and had knocked on the neighbour's door only to ask for a lemon.
The judges noted that the constable had consumed alcohol before the incident and was also aware that the complainant woman's husband was not present at home at the time.
“The action of the petitioner of knocking on neighbour's door knowing that the man in the house is absent, the same being occupied by a lady with her six-year-old daughter and that too for a frivolous reason of getting a lemon for a so called medical emergency of stomach upset, is preposterous to say the least,” a bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and MM Sathaye said on March 11.
Dismissing the petition, the court said such a conduct was “certainly unbecoming of an officer” of a force such as the CISF. “In our considered view, the intention of the petitioner is certainly not found to be as genuine and clear as alleged,” the bench added.
The court also said Vijayan’s argument that he was not on duty and therefore it does not amount to misconduct under Central Services (Conduct)Rules is “devoid of merits”.
The bench agreed with CISF’s advocate Ravi Shatty’s arguments that the Rules “requires the petitioner to maintain integrity and do nothing unbecoming of a government servant ‘at all times’”.
“In the net result, there is neither perversity in the impugned orders, nor they suffer from any error apparent on the face of the record, nor there is any jurisdictional transgression,” the bench said while dismissing the constable's plea.
