Hyderabad: Telangana high court sets aside dismissal of 6 bank employees

HYDERABAD: Hiding one’s own higher educational qualification in order to secure a lesser level of job may fall under misconduct, but that is not a grave crime that warrants the termination of such employee from service.
Describing the dismissal from service in six such cases in Central Bank of India in Hyderabad as shockingly disproportionate punishment, Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili of the Telangana high court has set aside all six termination orders and directed the bank authorities to take a lenient view of the action of the employees and impose a lesser punishment on them, but certainly termination from service is not an option at all.
The judge was dealing with the pleas of Bandaru Kavitha and five other Safai Karmacharis who have been working with various branches of the bank as daily wagers from 2007 onwards.
When the bank issued a notification on November 2012 calling for applications from eligible candidates for filling up the regular posts of Safai Karmacharis in the bank, Kavitha too applied for the post with the hope that she would get a permanent job.
The qualification prescribed for the post of Safai Karmachari is a pass in class VIII. She was called for an interview on February 7, 2013 and was selected as Safai Karmachari-cum-sub staff on March 22, 2013.
But her happiness was proved to be short-lived. Within a year, she was placed under suspension by the authorities on the ground that she misled the bank about her real educational qualifications.
She passed her SSC examination and studied intermediate too for some time. She obtained transfer certificate and bona fide certificate from the school which depicted her as class VIII pass student.
The bank conducted an internal inquiry and concluded that she misled the bank and issued a show-cause notice to her asking her why she should not be dismissed from service.
She explained her fears in her explanation that she was apprehensive about rejection if she discloses her real qualification because the bank’s notification was saying that the eligibility for the post is a pass in class VIII.
She had already rendered seven years of service in the same job as a daily wager and was anxious about losing an opportunity to become a permanent employee and hence furnished certificates of her class VIII.
She urged the authorities to take a lenient view of her conduct in view of the circumstances under which she did this. The bank did not heed to her plea and dismissed her from service on August 4, 2014. She then approached the high court seeking justice.
Justice Abhinand Kumar reminded the officials that Kavitha admitted her mistake and urged them to take a lenient view of her crime.
Referring to the argument of her counsel Mohd Islamuddin Ansari who referred to the judgements of the Supreme court that said that the sentence has to suit the offence and that it should never be indictive or unduly harsh, the judge said that in the current case the punishment given is shockingly disproportionate to the misconduct of the employee. The judge has set aside the dismissal orders given to Kavitha and five others and directed the bank authorities to impose any other lesser punishment.