Chennai: Madras high court upheld the removal of a police constable from service after he faced departmental action for his involvement in a cheating case. The court observed that acquittal in a criminal case does not automatically invalidate disciplinary proceedings.A division bench of Justice S M Subramaniam and Justice K Surender passed the order on a plea moved by the legal heirs of N Nithyanantham The case concerned Nithyanantham, who joined the Tamil Nadu Police as a grade-II police constable in 1985 and served in the armed reserve at Coimbatore.In June 2004, the police department issued a charge memorandum against him and placed him under suspension. The charges related to his alleged involvement in a cheating incident in which a group was accused of defrauding a person of 5.5 lakh by pretending to sell gold biscuits. According to the department, the constable drove a police vehicle used during the incident. The disciplinary authority then imposed the major penalty of removal from service. Appeals filed before the IG and the DGP were rejected. The constable challenged the disciplinary action before the high court through a writ petition, which was dismissed by a single judge in Dec 2020. He then filed a writ appeal against that order.During the pendency of the proceedings, the constable died, and his legal representatives were brought on record. The appellants argued that the criminal court acquitted the accused in the cheating case and that the evidence relied upon in the criminal trial and departmental enquiry was the same. The court noted that the criminal proceedings and departmental inquiries operate on different standards of proof.
