To,

The Honourable Appellate Authority, In Disciplinary Proceedings,

Being the Zonal manager
Life Insurance Corporation of India, Western Zonal office Mumbai.
Statutory Departmental Appeal under section 40 of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (Staff)
Regulation, 1960

(Through The Sr. Divisional. Manager, Pune Division Office-I, Pune, Disciplinary Authority)

Appellant: D.M. Dande, Engg. Asstt.Gr-Il, Pune divisional office-|

Respected Honour,
Aggrieved, dissatisfied, disappointed and disheartened at being a straitjacketed victim of injustice of the
impugned orders passed by the Disciplinary Authority on 23-08-2021. Whereby the Disciplinary Authority is
pleased to award major penalty of “reduction to a lower stage by six increments in a time scale of pay,” the
appellant seeks justice under the benign command of the last omnipotent Appellate Authority of the
Corporation on the following amongst other legal submissions and grounds, which are in the alternate and
without prejudice to one another, namely:-

Grounds and Legal Submissions:

|). At the outset, | respectfully submit that, going by the merits of the matter, out of the 4 Charges of the
Enquiry, the enquiry officer stated that the charge is very marginally proved as CSE made only one of the
three mandated visits and also CSE was only the recommending authority ont and not the sanctioning
authority as against charge no 1.

The charge is not proved as the correspondence for delay has been made with the contractor regarding
delay in commencement of work by the engineering department as against charge no 2.

The charge can’t be proved due to lack of evidence as against charge no 3.

The charge could not be totally proved and stands partially proved .the charge sheeted employee has
definitely indulged in financial transactions with Shri. Mate / contractor as against charge no 4.

Il). The 4 Charges are bifurcated into 2 parts. The first part consists of the first 3 Charges and the second
part consists of the Charge No-4. The first 3 Charges are as follows:-

# Charge No-1.
That the ARC Contractor, Sri N.R. Mate, was allotted the internal painting of Branch Office 94B, Solapur,
Pune DO-II by according financial sanction of Rs. 1.46 lakhs (including 5% contingencies and 2% revenue
charges) vide office note ref. No. PDO / Engg. / paint / 94B / PMD dated 26-11-2015 specifying the period
of completion as 30 days and the work commencing on 10-12-2015. As per item No 229 b of AMT / ARC-
2013-2015, a visit / inspection was required to be made by the engineer at the place of work. You failed to
make visit / inspection for commencement / during ongoing / progress of work, and deducted / devalued
amount of Rs. 6,090.50 as expenses incurred by surfaces while making payment of final bill. There is no
record available that three mandated visits have been made.

# My Reply to Charge No-1:

| deny the Charge No-1 as | had visited Solapur alongwith the then executive engineer on 29.12.2015. |
have to visit as per the advice and instructions of the then executive engineer of Pune divisional office-I. |
further state that if the work is not carried out by the contractor as per the specifications and not at the
Satisfactory level, it needs to be devalued. Joint inspection was done with the then executive engineer and
it was decided to devalue the work considering the quality of work for which | was not the competent
authority. The devaluation was done as per the factual status of work at site with any prejudice mind. | had
visited the site whenever | had been advised and instructed by the competent authority. Hence, the Charge
No-1 forms one of the false and wrong premises of the instant case.
# Charge No-2.
That ARC Contractor, Sri N.R. Mate, was accorded administrative approval and financial sanction of Rs.
1,31,096.00 (including 5% contingencies and 2% revenue changes) vide office note ref: PDO-1 / Engg. /
PMD for undertaking the work of providing parking shed and other works at Barshi Branch under Pune DO-
Il. The commencement order was dated 07-08-2015 with terms and conditions as per ARC tender for the
year-2013-2015, specifying the period of completion as 30 days and the work commencing on 11-08-2015.
The payment of the contractor was made after deduction of Rs.7,814/- being Liquidated Damages for delay
in completion of the work even though there is no record available regarding correspondence made with
the contractor regarding the delay caused in completion of work.

# My Reply to Charge No-2:

| deny the Charge No-2 as this work was allotted to me in the final stage of completion and the
necessary correspondence was already made by the then Asstt. Executive engineer as he was
associated this work from the inception. The deductions towards the liquidated damages
amounting to Rs.7814 was approved by the then competent authority as per the engineering
manual. Hence, the Charge No-2 forms one of the false and wrong premises of the instant case.

# Charge No-3
That you recommended rejection of the payment towards Bill No. 2862 dated 17-11-2014 for Rs. 24,447/-
for internal painting in quarter/ block No. 6, Western India House, Pune, for the reason that the work was
not undertaken by the contractor, whereas the Key of the quarters was collected by Sri N.R. Mate on 25-
06-2014 and returned on 01-07-2014 as per the Key Movement Register maintained at Estate Department,
Pune DO-I.

# My Reply to Charge No-3

| deny the Charge No-3 as | was not involved in the said work. | was fully unaware of the commencement
and completion of this work. Then where is the question of my obligation? Hence, the Charge No-3 forms
one of the false and wrong premises of the instant case.

# My ssunganbesnanate wages

A slight application of mind on these three points would have revealed that Mate’s complaints are too false
to be entertained against an innocent employee of the Corporation. Rather they all jumped to the foregone
conclusion from a prejudicial pre-decided mind-set of my being guilty of these false charges, hence | beg
the last omnipotent Appellate Authority to intervene and save me as the authority has violated the rule of
law and the principle of natural justice by punishing me with a penalising verdict for an offence I never
ever committed— a grave error of judgement that unlawfully coerces me into a straitjacketed victim of
injustice. Hence, the Disciplinary Authority’s penalising verdict born out of the wrong premises of the
Chargesheet cry for its scraping by judicious intervention of the last omnipotent Appellate Authority.

| lo-1; In enquiry report the PO has written that the CSE has visited Solapur on 29/12/2012,
30/12/2015 and the CSE has not visited Solapur three times though it was mandatory.
As per the procedure | need to make site visits when instructed by competent authority. In this case | was
not the competent authority to take any decisions regarding visits. Then on what grounds were this visits
compelled on me? Whereas, the EO has mentioned in his report that the charge is very marginally proved.
Hence, the Charge No.1 forms one of the false and wrong premises of the instant case.

Charge not proved as correspondence for delay has been made with the contractor
regarding delay in commencement of the work by the engineering department, mentioned in the enquiry
report.

me won eror falsehood has to be tested on the facts and records. If the facts coupled with documentary
evidence proves then it goes without saying that the same is not truthful. Simply because it is a domestic
enquiry, it does not mean that Mate’s repeated complaints gain the colour of truth from falsehood, nor does
 3

it means that the learned Disciplinary Authority has the right to punish an innocent employee with
a penalising verdict founded on wrong premises.

.-The Disciplinary Authority has embraced the lies-infested opinion of a Court-proven liar over the
truthful and factual contentions of an innocent and honest employee who unstintingly shed blood, sweat
and tears for Corporation over last the 32 years. An honest, innocent, hard-working, loyal, faithful
employee, a priceless human asset to be proud of, being burnt alive like Saint Joan in the hellfire
of falsehood ignited by the grotesque story of bribery fabricated by a crafty petty ARC contractor is in itself
a sad commentary on the unfair penalising verdict.

. The appellant has also responded to the show-cause notice dated 12-07-2021 by citing various proofs
and the learned Disciplinary Authority has dealt with the same in the impugned penalising verdict dated 23-
08-2021. It cannot be that the learned Disciplinary Authority could embrace a Court-proven fraudulent liar
contractor and demean its own employee. This is neither in the interest of the Corporation nor in conformity
with the judicious approach expected from the learned Disciplinary Authority. The conclusions so drawn by
the learned Disciplinary Authority are nothing short of embracing a Court-proven liar at the cost of
guillotining its own time-tested and trusted employee credited with a 32-years’ proven track-record
of excellent performance, contributions, commitment and diehard allegiance to the values of the
Corporation. This glaring anomaly calls for intervention of the last omnipotent Appellate Authority in the
interest of the Corporation.

. On one the hand, the learned Disciplinary Authority goes on to uphold the principle of natural justice,
but on the other hand, deviates from the conclusion. In the instant case, only the fallacy and error of
judgement of the learned Disciplinary Authority has been allowed to prevail over truth. It calls for the
righteous intervention of the last omnipotent Appellate Authority to right the wrong by scrapping the
unjust penalising verdict based on the wrong premises of the case.

. Mate’s repeated complaints do not mean that he was speaking truth. The corroboration in the form
of details, the bribe amount paid for some action etc. ought to have been stated in the initial complaint. The
learned Disciplinary Authority's naive assumption that everything stated in the complaint to be true, without
any specification or corroboration thereto, is nothing but turning Nelson’s eyes to the ground reality.

. The learned Disciplinary Authority discarding the stand of the appellant that the untruth sown by the
complaint needs to be uprooted at the bud is discarded by the Disciplinary Authority by reasoning that the
contentions raised earlier are repeated. The repetition is in relation to the fallacy available on record.

. The objective of a show-cause notice is to determine the truth. If the circumstantial proofs denoted that
the truth is otherwise, i.e. truth is something else than what is stage-managed to appear as truth and
still if the Adjudicating Authority is unable to see the truth, the only option left with the CSE to highlight that
the error of judgement is being committed by the learned Disciplinary Authority.

Charge No-4):
That, vide CPGRAM complaint dated 11.12.2017, Shri N.R. Mate, stated the following:
(1) That you misused your official position and demanded bribe for settlement of his Bills,
(2) pressurised him to withdraw his complaints,
(3) Dragged him to court for not withdrawing the complaint. The demand for bribe is supported with a copy
of the Savings Bank Statement of Shri N.R. Mate, ARC contractor, wherein the entries of the amounts
transferred from his account to you /your son/your wife are appearing Thereby, you placed yourself under
pecuniary obligation and indulged in personal monetary transaction with a contractor who has been
empanelled by the Corporation. By your aforesaid acts, you have failed to maintain absolute integrity,
devotion to duty and have knowingly acted in a manner detrimental to the interest of the Corporation and
prejudicial to good conduct and have violated the provisions of Regulations 21, 24 , 34(2) read with 39 (1)
of Life Insurance Corporation of India (Staff) Regulations, 1960 for which any one or more of the penalties
specified under Regulations 39(1) (a) to (j) of the aforesaid (Staff) Regulations, 1960 amended upto can be
imposed on you.
# My Fact-based Reply and Refutation of Charge No-4:-

| deny the Charge No-4 as unfounded, frivolous, pernicious, and maliciously manufactured machinations to
implicate me in a case of bribery and thereby decimate my reputation, self-respect and self-esteem in the
eyes of the society and my organisation as a tool of revenge against me for my official role in exposure of
Mate’s forgery of bank solvency certificate and fake information that lead to the rejection of his PDO-I ARC
contractor empanelment application in 2015. The back dated bank papers touted by Mate as a proof of
bribery as a hoax. The said charge is Mate’s conspiratorial post facto conversion of repayment by cheques
towards an old 2014 hand-loan incident into a frivolous story of bribery in 2017 after a lapse of 2.5 years of
its repayment as a tool of revenge against me.

(4) The learned PO, the learned EO and the learned Disciplinary Authority all took the Bank
papers/statements from 2008 to 2014 and granted as “an independent proof of bribery” to me for
settlement of Mate’s bills of Pune DO-I /Il and held me guilty in a case which itself is founded on
wrong premises resulting into a wrong penalising verdict. Mate succeeded to hoodwink the
Disciplinary personnel with his hoax of the pre-dated Bank papers but could not hoodwink the Hon'ble
Judge of the Civil Court who saw through his conspiracy game plan and rejected Mate’s allegation of
bribery as false and baseless and imposed on him a penalty of Rs 10,000/- for his misdeeds with a genuine
appreciation of my motiveless monetary help to an acquaintance on humanitarian ground without any
ulterior motive of lucre from this monetary help because we were having family relations with the
complainant.

. It is common sense that no fools on earth ever take bribes by Cheque payment leaving a proof of
bribery.
. The Hon'ble Civil Court has already passed its verdict on the Charge No-4 holding Mate’s allegations of
bribery as false and baseless and imposed on him a penalty of Rs 10,000/- for his misdeeds with a genuine
appreciation of the CSE’s motiveless monetary help to an acquaintance in financial distress on
humanitarian ground without any ulterior motive of lucre from this monetary help. The Disciplinary
Authority’s penalising verdict being diametrically opposite to the verdict of the Hon'ble Civil Court the same
charge no-4 is a classic example of a direct contempt of court.

In relation to the Charge-4, the learned. Disciplinary Authority has relied upon the documentation at D-6 to
D-9. Basically, the documentation at D-6 to D-9 are not at all canonised by the department in furtherance to
the charge No-4. The learned Disciplinary Authority in order to reach to its own logic has pulled up the
D-6 to D-9 as an independent proof of bribery. Then, how did the learned PO, the learned EO and the
learned Disciplinary Authority take these Bank papers/statements (from 2008 to 2014) for granted as
“an independent proof of bribery” to the CSE for an action he never ever committed because even
charge sheeted employee had also given an amount on various occasions for which the entries are
there in the passbook of the complainant and we have given the documentary proofs to the
preceding and enquiry officers. The Bank papers/ statements by mate are a hoax to hoodwink the
personnel of the Disciplinary proceeding with the deceptive appearance of a proof of bribery. Mate
succeeded with LIC, but not with the Hon’ble Civil Court.

As an afterthought after rejection of his 2015-Pune DO-I ARC contractor empanelment application because
of his forgery of the Bank Solvency Certificate, he lodged his complaints in 2017 into which he dragged my
name in the settlements of his bills. With bribe by touting the Bank papers/statements during 2008 to
2014 as a proof of bribery for futuristic settlement of his bills at Pune DO-I/Il. Thus, Mate’s entire conspiracy
game plan under the cloak of complaints is founded on a series of pure lies, hoaxes and falsehoods that
should not have been entertained at face value, giving birth to a chargesheet founded on wrong
premises that finally gave birth to an unfair, unjust and wrong penalising verdict that unlawfully coerces me
into a straitjacketed victim of injustice which is why it deserves to be scrapped altogether to save me from
injustice.

Mate could take others for a ride, but he could not befool the Hon’ble Judges of the 11" Jt. CUUD & JMFC,
Pune, who after careful consideration of all evidences, possibilities, probabilities, attestations of eye-
witnesses and their written affidavits in 35 hearing sessions over a period of 3-years and 8-months, saw
through Mate’s conspiracy game plan, his Machiavellian machinations and his Goebbelsian manipulations
 >

of facts and rejected his frivolous story of bribery as false and baseless and imposed on him a penalty of
Rs10,000/- as compensation for his misdeeds with a genuine appreciation of my motiveless monetary help
to a distressed man on humanitarian ground without any ulterior motive of lucre from this monetary help.
Out of the 35 hearing sessions over a period of 3-years and 8-months in the Civil Court, only in the First
session Mate’s lawyer stood up to defend his case and in the rest of 34 hearing sessions, neither his lawyer
nor Mate in person stood up to defend his case, because he knew that the truth is not on his side nor did he
have the guts to defend his naked lies in the Court. The Judge mentions it in the verdict, saying that it
seems the defendant is not interested to defend his case.

| filed Criminal and Civil court cases immediately after Mate’s First-ever complaint on 20-01-2017 to establish
the truth that | have been an innocent victim of Mate’s malicious lies and libels, vilification, machinations,
manipulations and criminal conspiracies to brand me as a bribe-taker, causing the complete decimation of my
lifetime goodwill, reputation, self-respect and dignity and lowering of my social standing in the eyes of my
family, friends, colleagues, organisation and society at large, hurling me into the hellfire of soul-killing
suffering, humiliation, embarrassment, harassment, agony, anguish, anxiety, frustration and deathly
depression. And the Hon’ble Judge of the 11" Jt. CJJD, Pune, who after careful consideration of all the
evidences possibilities, probabilities, attestations of eye-witnesses and their written affidavits in 35 hearing
sessions over a period of 3-years and 8-months, saw through his conspiracy game plan, his Machiavellian
machinations and his Goebbelsian manipulations of facts and rejected his frivolous story of bribery as false
and baseless and imposed on him a penalty of Rs 10,000/- as compensation for his misdeeds with
a genuine appreciation of my monetary help to a distressed man on humanitarian ground without any ulterior
motive of lucre from this monetary help. My innocence and Mate’s criminal conspiracy is about to be doubly
established by the verdict of the Criminal case, expected to come out sooner than later, likely to be similar to
the verdict of the Civil Court. | had to bear the brunt of a huge legal expenses of Rs.4,50,000/- to establish
my innocence in the court of law against Mate’s false and baseless story of bribery and his criminal
conspiracies to brand me as a bribe-taker. The Civil Court verdict in my favour is a vindication by the law of
the land of my guiltlessness and Mate’s proven criminal conspiracy.

# The Fraudulent Activities of the Complainant:-

A list of surreptitious and nefarious activities of the complainant that reveal his crooked character and his
habitual propensities to fraud, lies, falsifications, conspiracy and crookedness is given below with exhibits:-

(i) His ARC contractor empanelment application in Pune DO-I, 2015, was rejected for his submission of a
forged Bank Solvency Certificate from UCO Bank who officially denied to have issued it in his favour.

(ii) In his Enrolment Form for ARC Contractor in Pune DO-I, 2015, he submitted the name of Umesh
Electricals as his licensed Electrical contractor for electrical installation works. But Umesh Electricals
wrote back to LIC-Pune DO-I to confirm that he is neither Mate’s Licensed Electrical Contractor nor did
he ever work for N.R. Mate as his associate for electrical installation work. It is submission of false
particulars in the Enrolment Form for ARC Contractor.

(iii) The two letters written by Executive Engineer to SDM, Pune DO-1 and to the Branch Manager of UCO
Bank, Shivajinagar Branch, Pune, respectively, reveal N.R. Mate’s fraudulent dealings in official works
which called for legal action against him.

(iv) He played the same trick in 2017 with the WZO empanelment of ARC contractors by submitting a Bank
Solvency Certificate from the Bank of Maharashtra who wrote to us to treat the said Solvency Certificate as
cancelled because of his dubious credibility and untrustworthiness.

(v) He has ensnared an employee of Engg. Dept, WZO, in the same modus oparendi as he tried on me for
which | dragged him to the court for defamation and criminal acts against me.
 6

(vi) He lodged a complaint of bribery against an officer and within 24-days, in a dramatic volte-face,
he withdrew the complaint with profuse praise of same officer.

(vii) Sri Ikram Husain Tanwar, Sri Sanjay Pandurang Ghule and Sri Maruti Sripathi Pathak had given their
personal witnesses before the Hon'ble Judge of the Civil Court and Criminal Court and submitted their
written affidavits to the Courts in attestation of the fact of hand-loan given to Mate by me. Personal
Witness/Affidavit dated 16-1-2021 by Ikram Husain Tanwar and by Maruti Sripathi Pathak).

(viii) An Interim Court Order dated 27-10-2017 was passed by the Hon'ble Judge of Criminal Court under
RCC-397/2017(Criminal M.A-106/2017) after personal witnesses of two LIC Officers of Pune DO-I, Branch
Manager of UCO Bank, Shivajinagar Branch, Pune, Sri Ikram Husain Tanwar, Sri Umesh Prabhakar
Rode and Sri Sanjay Pandurang Ghule. The Criminal Case is still sub judice.
N.R. Mate is a Court-declared fraudulent liar saddled with a penalty of Rs 10,000/- for his misdeeds.

(ix) When the incident touch year 2014, grievance for the alleged bribe is made in the year 2017, the delay
itself goes on to show that something is fishy. Why the complainant has raised this issue after two year and
five months. The learned Disciplinary Authority was required to read between the lines.

(x) After quoting proof No-4, the learned Disciplinary Authority has discarded the Majesty of Law, in as
much as, it has demeaned the verdict of the Honourable Civil Court. From whatever is reasoned by the
learned Disciplinary Authority, it will have to be said that the learned Disciplinary Authority has thought itself
to be greater than the Honourable Civil Court. Certain dates are important. The inquiry commenced on
05.01.21. It progressed till 04.03-2021 before the Inquiring Authority. The decision of the learned Civil Court
was rendered on 10-02-2020 and the same was placed on record as document .The charge No-4 and the
issues involved in the matter before Civil Court were having inescapable resemblances to the facts of the
case. Under the Law of the land, the Civil Court has much more excessive powers than a quasi judicial
authority in the shape of learned Enquiring Authority as well as the learned Disciplinary Authority. The
verdict of the Civil Court is based upon actual scrutiny of the evidence available. For this reason, the
decision of the Civil Court is required to be hailed over and above the opinions given in the departmental
proceedings, at least at the level of the learned Disciplinary Authority.

XI) The learned Disciplinary Authority as well as the Enquiry Authority, both have treated themselves as a
superior authority sitting in appeal over and above the judgment of the Honourable Civil Court. Once, when
the Honourable Civil Court has come to a conclusion that the complaint given by N.R. Mate was held to be
false (paragraphs Nos. 9, 10 and 11 of the judgment), there was no escape for the learned Enquiry
Authority as well as the Disciplinary Authority to deviate from the findings of the Honourable Civil Court.

XIl) The findings recorded by the learned Disciplinary Authority that the charge No-4 stands partially
proved/established in departmental proceedings, remains totally contrary to the findings of the
Honourable Civil Court, in para No-11 thereof. If we peruse the reasoning of the impugned penalising order,
it does not speak anything about the observations in para No. 11 of the decision of Civil Court. Where upon
the same set of circumstances, or rather same set of evaluation is also adopted by the Hon'ble civil court.
If the Hon'ble civil court, by adopting the same evaluation process, reaches a conclusion that the complaint
is untrustworthy, then conclusion, as drawn by the learned inquiry authority as well as Learned Disciplinary
Authority by the same mode of record, cannot be of any avail. That would amount to share discrimination
as contemplated under article 14 and 16 of the constitution of India.

(XIll) The learned Disciplinary Authority not only held the Court-returned eye-witnesses of the defendant as
“tutored” in chorus with the EO and raised contemptuous doubt about the truthfulness of the Court-decided
hand-loan incident but also stepped out of the fence of the Chargesheet and by sitting on appeal over the
judgement of the Hon’ble Civil Court on the same issue of the Charge No-4. And passed a stage-
managed penalising verdict on the basis of imaginary preponderance of probability without a single cogent
and corroborative evidence. The learned Disciplinary Authority’s bad penalising verdict being diametrically
opposite to the verdict of the Hon’ble Civil Court is equal to overriding the Civil Court judgement.

(XIV) The CSE and his family gave the hand-loan to the concerned complaining contractor and by creating
proofs about the repayment of such hand-loan, these proofs are racked-up after the exposure of his forgery
of bank solvency certificate and fake information for empanelment'’s forms given by him. Since this is the
 2

fact, the Learned Disciplinary authority was requires to read between the lines, especially considering the
reality that there was an unexplained delay of not less than two and half years and accepting my amount
after his transactions.

(XV) If at all the contractor was unwilling to pay the alleged bribe, then he could have spoken upto the year
2014 itself instead of showing the amount to the accounts of the employee. After 2014 why he accepted my
amount which is given to him and the details of passbook copies is submitted to EO. The delay itself makes
the complaint of the contractor to be a total falsehood. In such set of circumstances, the conclusions drawn
by the learned Disciplinary Authority are not only perverse but also totally untrustworthy.

(XVI) The learned Disciplinary Authority has failed to appreciate that if at all it is a case of demand and
acceptance of bribe, then necessarily, it ought to have been a criminal act as contemplated under the law.
The appellant submits that there is no criminal prosecution lodged by the department, or even on behalf of
the contractor, who alleges that it was a bribe-taking exercise. Not adhering to something which is
contemplated under law, altering an untruth to be a truth, is never expected under any law.

(XVII) The learned Disciplinary Authority has concluded that the CSE was having monitory dealings with
the contractor and it is against the expected code of conduct to be followed by an employee of the
Corporation. It is a matter of common wisdom that besides being an employee of the Corporation, every
living being is a human. Humanitarian approach is an essentiality of life. The learned Disciplinary Authority
has intermingled the humanitarian act of the CSE to extend his helping hand to a man in distress, to
be a service misconduct. If the humanitarian approach does not have any relation with the official duty of
the charged employee, then the learned Disciplinary Authority does not have any permissibility to make
any derogatory observations about the hand-loan given on humanitarian ground.

(XVIII) While the learned disciplinary authority has stressed to be its sole ground to hold the charge
employee guilty, useful reference can be given to the observations of Hon’ble civil court in Para no. 11 of
the document at P-18, i.e. judgement in RCS No-1130/2017. If that verdict is also based on the probabilities
how can a sub-ordinate body than the Hon'ble civil court simply escape the conclusion drawn by a superior
authority. It is, therefore illustration of an inferior authority sitting in appeal on the judgment of the Hon'ble
civil court.

(XIX) The learned Disciplinary Authority was pitted the verdict of the Hon’ble civil court. The learned
disciplinary authority reached and penalising verdict in violation of the verdict of the Hon'ble civil
court on the same charge No.4 evaluated by the same method of judgment. The Disciplinary
Authority managed to produce a diametrically opposite verdict in contemptuous toward nullification
of the verdict of the civil court.

(XX) The learned Disciplinary Authority has completely ignored the expectations of Regulation 34 of the
Life Insurance Corporation of India (Staff) Regulations-1960. The Rule itself gives permissibility to extend
small loan to an acquaintance/friends. Provision to Regulation 34 (2) was required to be assessed in the
present case. And the learned Disciplinary Authority has adverted only on ‘preponderance of probability’,
without even looking to the permissibility available under Regulation-1960.

(XXI) In the concluding para, the learned Disciplinary Authority has reprimanded the CSE in the worst
possible manner. The conclusions so drawn by the learned Disciplinary Authority are piles of perversity.
Leave aside charges No-1 to 3, even Charge No-4 is not worth being entertained, not only in the light
of the defence raised by the CSE, but also supported by the verdict of the Honourable Civil
Court. Therefore, the penalising verdict of the learned Disciplinary Authority lacks credence and smacks
of a prejudiced stand of a pre-decided mind-set.

(XXII) There is a serious mismatch in the gravity of the alleged service misconduct and the punishment
meted out. The learned Disciplinary Authority snatching away of the CSE to a lower stage by 6 increments
in a time scale would inflict severe financial losses on the appellant. The alleged offense of the employee
has not entailed any financial loss to the corporation at all. The Corporation is not at all at any loss —
necessarily financially. It is the CSE who has suffered all-pervasive loss of all sorts, not the Corporation, by
any stretch of imagination. Since the Corporation has not suffered any financial loss, and yet coercing the
employee to suffer financially throughout his left-over service period, is in itself illogical and traverses the
 8

legitimate expectations under law. The offence-punishment mismatch in the penalizing verdict of the
learned Disciplinary Authority can be likened to a jay-walker crossing the road on the wrong side and the
learned Disciplinary Authority passes order for hanging him till death for his petty offence of jay-walking.
The awarded punishment of reduction to a lower stage by six increments in a time scale is unfair,
unjust and disproportionate with the so-called service misconduct. The conspicuous lack
of synchronised rationality between the alleged service misconduct and the awarded penalty turns
the verdict into a travesty of natural justice and rule of law in the hands of Disciplinary Authority.

(XXIII)
1. Seen from all possible angles, the impugned penalising order is bad in law and cries for interference at
the able hands of the last omnipotent Appellate Authority of the Corporation. | seek complete exoneration
from all the false and baseless charges founded on wrong premises of the charge-sheet giving birth to a
wrong penalising verdict that unlawfully coerces the me into a straitiacketed victim of injustice and
restoration of the position with dignity.

2. | would further say that the limitation prescribed for preferring of the Appeal is provided under Regulation
41 of the Staff Regulations of 1960. The impugned penalising order is served on me on 23-08-2021.
Considering the said date, the Appeal could be filed by 23.11.2021. However, as the ill- effects of
the penalising order are already greeting me, | prefer the Appeal beforehand.

3. In these set of circumstance, the | earnestly pray that the present appeal be ordered to be allowed and
the order passed by the learned Disciplinary Authority dated 23.08.2021 may kindly be ordered to be upset
and exonerate all the charges levelled against me.

Hence this statutory departmental appeal is submitted.

.\
SE
Dated : 22.11.2021
Place : Pune (D. M. Dande)
(Appellant)