The submission on disproportionately must be rejected and repelled, as the charge of failure to keep and take care of the ammunition was grave and serious
Rejecting the plea of a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) jawan, whose pay scale was reduced for losing 32 rounds of ammunition, the Delhi High Court (HC) termed it a grave and serious offence.
On September 5, 2011, Head Constable Subey Singh had gone to fetch water while being posted at Vijay Ghat, leaving behind three magazines, 96 rounds of 9 mm. When he came back, he found only 64 rounds of ammunition, following which an enquiry was constituted, which found him guilty of negligence.
Singh was punished with a reduction in the pay scale for three years. It was also ordered that Singh would not earn any increment during this period and that on the expiry of this period, the reduction would have the effect of postponing his future increment in pay. He then challenged the order, passed by the CISF Commandant.
Singh contended that he had gone to fetch water from a nearby source as there was no provision of potable water or washroom at the ground post. He further said there was no other person on ground duty at the time and that these circumstances must be taken into account while imposing the punishment on him.
In his plea, he further said the missing rounds of ammunition were later recovered, a fact that was ignored by the Disciplinary Authority.
A Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Navin Chawla rejected the plea and termed the loss of ammunition a serious misconduct.
"We do not find any merit in this submission made by the petitioner. The submission on disproportionately must be rejected and repelled, as the charge of failure to keep and take care of the ammunition was grave and serious. It was not a trivial and minor matter," the court said in its order.
"We found nothing wrong with the impugned orders holding him guilty of the charges levelled against him. Recovery of the ammunition at a later stage would not absolve the petitioner of gross negligence and remissness in misplacing the ammunition in the first place," the court stated.
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