Siddhart, J.—Heard Shri S.P. Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioner and Shri Vivek Ratan, learned counsel appearing on behalf of respondents.

2. The brief facts of the case are that petitioner while working as accountant in Madhubani Branch, Behraich of the Union Bank of India was charge sheeted on 3.10.2008 with the charges that he renewed the F.D.R. certificate of account holders but did not credited the amount in their account. He posted fictitious credit entries in the accounts and did false balancing of secured loan amount in the absence of security. Further fraud of Rs. 1,04,000/- was committed by the petitioner for his personal gains by misusing his official position.

3. He was charged of:-

1. Failure to discharge his duties with utmost honesty and integrity.

2. Failure to discharge his duties with utmost devotion and diligence.

3. Acting otherwise in his best judgement in performance of his official duties.

4. Failure to take all possible steps to ensure and protect the interest of the bank.

4. Details of various fraudulent transactions committed by the petitioner were given to him.

5. Petitioner has not brought on record any document proving that he submitted his reply to the individual charges levelled against him. A defence brief/argument dated 17.7.2009 has been annexed as annexure-11 to the writ petition, which appears to have been filed before the inquiry officer after the conclusion of the inquiry proceedings and he stated therein that he has not done anything wrong and always discharged his duties with utmost honesty, full devotion, diligence and integrity and prayed that he may be exonerated of the charges.

6. Petitioner is stated to have submitted his reply before the respondent no.4 on 17.7.2009 categorically denying the charges made against him.

7. Thereafter detailed inquiry was conducted against the petitioner on the basis of charge-sheet dated 3.10.2008 and its reply dated 17.7.2009 by the petitioner. The inquiry officer was appointed by the disciplinary authority who submitted his report dated 10.8.2009 before the disciplinary authority holding the petitioner guilty of the charges. The disciplinary authority passed the punishment order dated 14.10.2009, annexed as annexure-1 to the writ petition, against the petitioner imposing major penalty of dismissal from the service.

8. Petitioner preferred an appeal before the appellate authority,respondent no.3, on the ground that major penalty of dismissal awarded to him is not justified since he has not done any act prejudicial to the interest of the bank nor bank has suffered any pecuniary loss.

9. The appellate authority dismissed the appeal of the petitioner by order dated 14.12.2009 holding that petitioner has misappropriated banks funds for personal gain and use, therefore, major penalty of dismissal from service awarded to him is commensurate with charges proved against him.

10. Not satisfied the order of the appellate authority, petitioner preferred a review petition before the respondent no. 2 which was dismissed by the order dated 14.7.2010 upholding the order of punishment and appellate order passed against the petitioner by the disciplinary authority and appellate authority respectively.

11. Aggrieved by the aforesaid orders petitioner has preferred this writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. The two arguments advanced on behalf of the learned counsel for the petitioner are that no pecuniary loss was caused by him to the Bank and the punishment awarded to him is not commensurate with the misconduct attributed to him and charges proved against him

12. Counter affidavit has been filed by Shri Vivek Ratan, learned counsel for the respondents justifying the major penalty awarded to the petitioner on the ground that he indulged in major and gross misconducts of the financial irregularities. He failed to discharge his duties with utmost honesty and integrity and did acts prejudicial to the interest of bank and tarnished the image of the bank. The review of the disciplinary inquiry by the bank may not be restored by the High Court since finding of fact cannot be re-appreciated under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. Petitioner has acted against the interest of the bank and if he is permitted to continue in service of the bank confidence of public would be shaken. He has been given fair opportunity to defend himself and has failed to prove that his conduct was in accordance with the requirements of his duties. Petitioner has been granted full opportunity of hearing and he has availed the same and order of punishment has been affirmed by the appellate authority as well as the reviewing authority of the bank.

13. We have considered the material on record and arguments made on behalf of both the parties. It is well settled that High Court can interfere with the orders passed in departmental proceedings to correct the errors of law or fundamental procedural requirement, which may lead to manifest injustice and can interfere with the impugned orders in "exceptional circumstances" as held in Union of India v. Parma Nanda, AIR 1989 SC 1185 [LQ/SC/1989/158 ;] ">AIR 1989 SC 1185 [LQ/SC/1989/158 ;] [LQ/SC/1989/158 ;] ;State Bank of India v. Samarendra Kishore Endow (1994) 2 SCC 537 [LQ/SC/1994/77 ;] ">(1994) 2 SCC 537 [LQ/SC/1994/77 ;] [LQ/SC/1994/77 ;] ; Transport Commissioner, Madras v. A. Radha Krishana Moorthy(1995) 1 SCC 332 [LQ/SC/1994/1146] ;State of U.P. v. Ashok Kumar Singh, AIR 1996 SC 736 [LQ/SC/1995/1116] ; Rae Bareli Kshetriya Gramin Bank v. Bhola Nath Singh, AIR 1997 SC 1908 [LQ/SC/1997/387] ;Union of India v. Ashutosh Kumar Srivastava (2002)1 SCC,188;Lalit Popli v. Canara Bank (2003) SCC 583.

14. In State of Tamil Nadu v. S. Subramaniam, AIR 1996 SC 1232 [LQ/SC/1996/192] , the Apex Court has held that as the High Court has power of judicial review of the administrative action on complaint relating to service conditions of the employee, it is within the exclusive domain of the disciplinary authority to consider the evidence on record and to record findings whether the charge stood proved or not. It is equally settled law that technical rules of evidence have no application in the disciplinary proceedings and the authority is to consider the material on record. In judicial review, the court has no power to trench on the material on the jurisdiction to appreciate the evidence and to arrive on its own conclusion. Judicial review is not an appeal from a decision but a review of the manner in which the decision is made. It is meant to ensure that the delinquent receives fair treatment and not to ensure that the conclusion, which the authority reaches, is necessarily correct in the view of the Court or the tribunal. When the conclusion reached by the authority is based on evidence, the court or the tribunal is devoid of power to re-appreciate the evidence and come to its own conclusion on the proved charges. The only consideration the court/tribunal has in its judicial review, is to consider weather the conclusion is based on the evidence on record that support the finding or whether the conclusion is based on no evidence.

15. Learned counsel for the petitioner has failed to point out any such finding which is not based on the evidence on record. Similar view has been taken in the case of General Court Martial v. Anil Tej Singh Dhaliwal, AIR 1998, SC 983, Rajinder Kumar Kindra v. Delhi Administration, (1984) 4 SCC 635 [LQ/SC/1984/261] and R.S. Saini v. State of Punjab(1999) 8 SCC, 90 [LQ/SC/2022/640 ;] ">8 SCC, 90 [LQ/SC/2022/640 ;] [LQ/SC/2022/640 ;] ; High Court of Madras v. K. Muthu Kumerswamy (2014) 16 SCC 555 [LQ/SC/2014/793] ; Prem Nath Bali v. High Court of Delhi (2015) SCC, 415.

16. It has been held by the Supreme Court in Municipal Committee v. Krishnan Behari, JT 1996(3)SC 96 [LQ/SC/1996/432] and Diwan Singh v. L.I.C. (2015) 2,SCC 341 that for misappropriation of money the only punishment can be dismissal even if misappropriation is of a small amount. Hence the petitioner was rightly dismissed and the punishment awarded to him in commensurate with charges proved against him. SBI v. R. Periyaswamy (2015) 3 SCC 101 [LQ/SC/2014/1327] ;

17. It may be mentioned that it has been repeatedly been held by a series of decisions of the Supreme Court and of this Court that in a Bank the highest standards of integrity and devotion to duty have to be maintained by employees because a Bank runs on public confidence vide Union Bank of India v. Vishwa Mohan, (1998) 4 SCC 310 [LQ/SC/1998/444] ; Sudhir Singh v. District Co-operative Bank, 2003 ALJ 1213; Ram Pratap Sonkar v. Allahabad Bank, 2000 ALJ 2510; K.K. Singh v. Gomti Gramin Bank, 2002 ALJ 480; In fact greater integrity and devotion to duty is required from Bank employees as compared to the employees of other organisations vide V.K. Bahadur v. State Bank of India, 2000 (4) ESC 796. Any leniency shown in such matters would be wholly uncalled for vide Disciplinary Authority v. N.B. Patnaik, 1996 (9) SCC 69 [LQ/SC/1996/800] .

18. In fact in State Bank of India v. T.J. Paul JT 1999(3) SC 385 [LQ/SC/1999/507] , the Supreme Court held that in the case of Bank employees even if there was no actual loss to the Bank, the employee could be punished for negligence. Hence the argument of the petitioner on that account also fails.

19. In view of the above legal position. we do not find any good ground to interfere with the impugned punishment order, appellate order and review order passed by respondent nos. 4,3 and 2; respectively.

20. The writ petition is accordingly dismissed but without any order as to costs.

Final Result : Dismissed