The Supreme Court observed there is no absolute right in favour of the delinquent employee to be represented in the departmental proceedings through the agent of his choice and the same can be restricted by the employer.
In this case, High Court has permitted the delinquent employee who is facing disciplinary proceedings to represent through ex-employee of the Bank. It was observed that the Regulation 44 only restricts representation by a legal practitioner, and even that too is permissible of course with the leave to the competent authority, and there is no complete or absolute bar even on engaging a lawyer, the employee cannot be restrained from availing services of retired employee of a Bank.
The question raised in appeal filed by the bank was whether the employee, as a matter of right is entitled to avail the services of an Ex-employee of the Bank as his DR in the departmental proceedings ?
The court noted that the Regulation neither restricts nor permits availing the services of any outsider and / or ex-employee of the Bank as DR and to that extent Regulation is silent. But it noticed that the Clause 8 of the Handbook Procedure specifically provides that DR should be serving official / employee from the Bank. The bench comprising Justices MR Shah and Sanjiv Khanna observed:
If the reasoning of the High Court is considered, the High Court is of the opinion that as there is no complete or absolute bar even on engaging a lawyer, it is difficult to accept that a retired...
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