A widow's decade-long legal battle ends with the Court holding that "unauthorized absence" is not the same as "willful absence," and that denial of an enquiry report is fatal to a dismissal order.
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Particular |
Detail |
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Case title |
Heera Mani vs. State of Rajasthan & Anr. |
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Case number |
D.B. Special Appeal Writ No. 1349/2011 |
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Court |
High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan at Jodhpur |
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Bench |
Hon'ble Chief Justice Sanjay K. Agrawal and Hon'ble Justice
Vinit Kumar Mathur |
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Date of judgment |
16.09.2026 |
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Citation |
[2026:RJ-JD:44608-DB] |
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Order under appeal |
Judgment dated 11.12.2008 in S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.
2021/2001 |
The appellant, Heera Mani, is the widow of a Constable who had
joined the Rajasthan Police in 1979. During 1994, while battling a prolonged
bout of Tuberculosis, he was unable to attend duty regularly. The Department
responded not with sympathy but with a charge-sheet under Rule 16 of the CCA
Rules, 1958, listing six separate instances of unauthorized absence spread
across roughly 57 days.
An Enquiry Officer was appointed, and the Constable — too unwell
to appear in person — deputed a representative and produced two witnesses,
Constable Naval Singh and Constable Udai Raj, who testified that he was
genuinely suffering from Tuberculosis and had no one at home to care for him
during treatment. Despite this, the Enquiry Officer found him guilty on all
counts, and the Disciplinary Authority (Superintendent of Police, Barmer)
terminated his service by order dated 26.10.1996.
Crucially, the Constable also alleged that he was never furnished
a copy of the enquiry report before the punishment was imposed, a procedural
safeguard mandated under Rule 16(10) of the CCA Rules.
From a Dismissed Writ Petition to a Widow's
Appeal
The Constable passed away after prolonged illness before he could
challenge the termination. His widow, residing in a remote part of Alwar
district, eventually filed S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 2021/2001, but by the
time it reached the Single Judge, over a decade had elapsed. On 11.12.2008, the
Single Judge dismissed the petition outright — not on merits, but on the twin
technical grounds of availability of an alternative remedy and delay and
laches.
That dismissal is what brought the matter before the Division
Bench in this Special Appeal filed under Rule 134 of the Rajasthan High Court
Rules, 1952.
The Division Bench framed a single, sharply focused issue:
"Whether
the learned Single Judge is absolutely justified in dismissing the writ
petition upholding the order of termination?"
Answering this required the Court to revisit two independent legal
threads — the meaning of "willful absence" in service jurisprudence,
and the consequence of withholding an enquiry report from a delinquent
employee.
Willful Absence Is Not the Same as Unauthorized
Absence
The appellant's counsel leaned heavily on the Supreme Court's
ruling in Krushnakant B. Parmar vs. Union
of India and Ors., reported at 2012 (3) SCC 178. That precedent draws a
critical distinction: an employee may be "unauthorized" in being
absent without permission, but that absence only becomes actionable misconduct
if it is shown to be willful.
The Division Bench extracted the reasoning from that judgment
almost in full, noting the Supreme Court's holding that:
· Unauthorized absence without prior permission does not
automatically mean willful absence.
· Compelling circumstances — illness, accident, hospitalization —
that make it impossible to report for duty cannot be treated as willful
defiance.
· The burden lies on the disciplinary authority to affirmatively
prove that the absence was willful; failing that, no misconduct can be said to
be established.
The Bench reinforced this with Chhel
Singh vs. M.G.B. Gramin Bank, Pali and Others (2014 AIR SCW 6539), where
the Supreme Court had similarly refused to sustain a dismissal because there
was no finding that the absence was willful, and no allegation that the
employee's medical certificates were forged or fabricated.
Applying these principles, the Rajasthan High Court found that the
Department had charge-sheeted the Constable for absence but never actually
proved that the absence was willful. On the contrary, two serving constables
had given direct testimony confirming his Tuberculosis diagnosis and the
absence of family support during treatment — evidence the Enquiry Officer chose
to disregard without any counter-finding that it was untrue.
The Second Fatal Flaw: No Copy of the Enquiry
Report
Even independent of the illness question, the Court found a
standalone ground to strike down the termination: the Constable was never given
a copy of the enquiry report before the Disciplinary Authority acted on it,
contrary to Rule 16(10) of the CCA Rules.
The Bench relied on the Constitution Bench-adjacent authority of Union of India vs. Mohd. Ramzan Khan,
(1991) 1 SCC 588, which had settled that a delinquent employee is entitled to a
copy of the enquiry report before a final punishment decision is taken, and
that non-furnishing of the report amounts to a breach of natural justice
sufficient to invalidate the final order. The Court also drew on H.P. State Electricity Board Ltd. vs. Mahesh
Dahiya, (2016) 12 SCC 583, which held that forming an opinion to impose a
major penalty even before forwarding the enquiry report to the employee is
itself a clear violation of natural justice.
Why Delay Could Not Bar the Widow's Claim
Although the judgment does not dwell at length on limitation, its
ultimate disposition makes clear that the Division Bench treated the merits of
the case — proven illness, unproven willfulness, and denial of the enquiry
report — as compelling enough to look past the delay that had troubled the
Single Judge. A widow from a remote district, left to pursue litigation alone
after her husband's death, was not to be shut out of justice on procedural
technicalities when the underlying dismissal itself was legally unsustainable.
The Division Bench allowed the Special Appeal in full. Both the
order of termination dated 26.10.1996 and the Single Judge's order dated
11.12.2008 were quashed and set aside. Since the Constable had already passed
away, the Court directed that his widow, Heera Mani, would be entitled to all
consequential service and retiral benefits, to be released within 45 days of
receipt of the certified copy of the judgment.
This ruling is a reminder that disciplinary law does not permit
institutions to conflate absence with insubordination. For a termination to
survive judicial scrutiny, the employer must affirmatively establish that the
absence was deliberate defiance, not a consequence beyond the employee's
control such as serious illness. Equally, the case reaffirms that procedural
safeguards like supplying the enquiry report are not empty formalities — their
breach alone can be enough to unravel an otherwise "final" punishment,
years after the fact, and even after the employee's death.
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