The Delhi High Court has dismissed a petition challenging the initiation of disciplinary proceedings against a senior officer of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for allegedly assisting a Rajya Sabha MP in drafting a private member bill for the establishment of Public Credit Registry.
The Single-Judge Bench of Justice Rekha Palli dismissed the plea, after observing that it was an admitted position that the departmental inquiry against RBI Director Saket Kumar Sharma was initiated only recently and that on September 29, the Inquiry Officer had directed the Presenting Officer to tender evidence in support of the charges levelled against Sharma.
The High Court noted that the petitioner had moved the Court at a premature stage, when the inquiry had just commenced.
It was common knowledge that the Court usually did not interdict the departmental proceedings initiated against an employee, unless a case of gross perversity or high-handedness was made out
Justice Palli further noted that it was the petitioner’s own case that he had assisted Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha in drafting the private Bill on the aspect on which his employer itself was drafting a bill.
The official’s contention that most of the information shared by him with the MP was already in public domain, was an aspect which the Inquiry Officer was expected to consider in detail. It would not be appropriate for the High Court to examine this aspect at this premature stage, added Justice Palli.
The Single bench, however, made it clear that the dismissal of the plea would not preclude the petitioner from raising the grounds raised in the petition, either before the Inquiry Officer or before a competent Court after a final order was passed in the departmental proceedings.
Sharma had challenged the memorandum of charges made against him on August 2, 2021 and the ‘revised charge sheet’ filed on July 25.
In 2019, the Public Credit Registry Division was contemplating to table a bill on the public credit registry. Director General of the division, Indrajit Roy, had shared some information with Sharma regarding the same.
Sharma was accused of further indulging in discussions with MP Sinha regarding the recommendations of the High Level Task Force on Public Credit Registry for India.
It has been alleged that based on those discussions, the MP in 2019 introduced a private member bill in Parliament on the subject. In 2020, RBI noticed similarities between the private member bill and the one drafted by RBI and issued showcause notice to both Sharma and Roy, asking them to explain whether confidential information had been supplied by either of them to the MP.
In his reply, Roy said that he had only shared some information with Sharma. The RBI Director admitted that he had made certain discussions with the MP on the basis of information already available in the public domain, but denied divulging any confidential information.
RBI found the reply unsatisfactory and issued him a memorandum of charges on the ground of committing misconduct and indiscipline by violating the provisions of the Reserve Bank of India (Staff) Regulations, 1948.
Sharma again denied the charges, which led to filing of a revised charge sheet against him.
RBI apprised the High Court that in the light of the petitioner’s admission that he had helped the MP in drafting a private bill to be presented in Parliament on the same subject on which a bill was being prepared by the bank, in itself showed that the actions of the petitioner were detrimental to the interests of the bank.
The Counsel representing RBI further told the Court that Roy had shared the information with the petitioner only to help him to brief the government’s representatives on the subject.
However, Sharma not only shared the information with a rank outsider, but also helped him prepare a private bill to be presented in the Parliament and that too on a subject on which the respondent bank was preparing a bill.
(Case title: Saket Kumar Sharma versus Reserve Bank of India & Others)