Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has quashed the first information report registered against 10 Canara Bank employees under the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 on the complaint filed by a former employee who was charged with committing irregularities.
In the order, the high court has held that the disciplinary proceedings instituted against a bank employee, who happens to be a member of the Scheduled Caste community and is accused of committing irregularities, cannot be challenged under Section 3(1)(p) of the SC/ST Act, after such employee has accepted the penalty and has received the pension.
“Abuse of power of law”
While quashing the FIR, the Justice M Nagaprasanna called the FIR as an abuse of the power of law. In his order he said that to curb the chances of the grave miscarriage of the justice the FIR which was registered at the Siddapura Police Station needs to be quashed.
The complainant could not have registered a complaint post-retirement, that too against several retired officers of the Bank. In the teeth of the aforesaid facts, if further proceedings are permitted to continue, it would undoubtedly degenerate into harassment and would become an abuse of the process of law and result in grave miscarriage of justice.
Justice M Nagaprasanna
The Case
As per the order, the complainant who was functioning as a Manager at the Town Hall Branch of the Bank was suspended in 2013 for indulging in certain irregularities. Later he was dismissed from the services which provoked the complainant to file a false case of the SC-ST act against ten officers of the bank under Section 3(1)(p) and 3(1)(q) of the Act.
