Bombay high court relief for nurse sacked 10 years ago for contesting polls

MUMBAI: A decade after a nurse was removed from service at Byculla's Central Railway Hospital for contesting state assembly elections in 2009 without intimation, the Bombay high court came to her aid, holding that she cannot be dismissed but can get a reduced penalty.
"...considering the gravity of misconduct and the circumstances in which it was committed, the penalty of removal from service after rendering 26 years of service shocks our conscience," said the HC bench of acting Chief Justice S V Gangapurwala and Justice Sandeep Marne, in a recent judgment.
A government servant contesting election while in service is a grave misconduct, observed the HC, but noted that Swati Nilegaonkar "did not intend to suppress her desire of contesting" and tendered a notice for voluntary retirement before filing the nomination form. While accepting that she ought to have waited three months for the notice period to end, the HC observed that her "decision to contest the election appears to be taken on a spur of a moment considering the short gap of about eight days between the notice for voluntary retirement and filing of nomination form". Nilegaonkar had sent a notice for voluntary retirement on September 16, 2009, a week before filing her nomination for the assembly polls.
The HC then set aside her 2013 dismissal order and also a 2019 order of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) that had upheld her removal from service.
In November 2009, Nilegaonkar was informed that she would have to attend duties till her retirement plea was sanctioned. She lost the election and resumed duty. In August 2010, Nilegaonkar was chargesheeted for misconduct under the Railway Servants Rules for contesting election without intimation to the railway administration, and for two months of unsanctioned leave. She approached the CAT in 2017, but got no relief.
In the HC, Nilegaonkar's counsel Ajeet Manwani argued that the penalty was disproportionate and harsh to the misconduct proved and it was preventing her pension. But the railway counsel, Smita Thakur, said the removal was justified.
The law laid down by the Supreme Court is that if a court's conscience is shaken, it can either direct the authority to reconsider the penalty imposed and in exceptional and rare cases, itself impose appropriate punishment, the HC said. "This is not a case where a petitioner contested the elections while continuing to remain in service. On the contrary, she desired to leave service and accordingly, issued notice for voluntary retirement...and remaining absent from duty for a couple of months again is not a serious misconduct," said the HC, remitting the matter to the disciplinary authority "for reducing the penalty" and to "impose appropriate penalty except that of removal or dismissal from service" so th-at she can "be entitled to be paid all consequential benefits".