1. Leave granted.

2. The only question in this appeal is whether the appellant was entitled to a notice from the disciplinary authority to show cause against the tentative decision of the disciplinary authority to differ with the finding of the inquiry officer.

3. The departmental proceedings were initiated against the appellant. The inquiry officer exonerated the appellant by his report dated 10-3-1997 in respect of all three articles of charges.

4. The disciplinary authority passed an order on 7-7-1997 in which he stated:

"Thus, after careful consideration of the evidence which has been produced for substantiating the charges one and two, the undersigned has provisionally come to the conclusion that Shri Lav Nigam, St. No. 247(o) is not a fit person to be retained in the services of the company and that a major penalty should be imposed on Shri Lav Nigam and accordingly proposes to impose on him the penalty of removal under R.25(f) of the Conduct, Discipline and Appeal Rules, 1975 of theI Ltd. Now, therefore, Shri Lav Nigam is hereby given an opportunity of making representation on the penalty proposed above. Any representation which he may wish to make against the penalty proposed will be considered by the undersigned. If any should be made in writing and submitted so as to reach the undersigned not later than 15 days from the date of receipt of this show cause notice by Shri Lav Nigam."

5. The three articles of charges were set out by the disciplinary authority who also recorded in the body of the order that two of the three charges had been proved. The order concludes with the finding:

"This is a serious misconduct on the part of Shri Lav Nigam, an executive of manager level of a public sector undertaking company."

6. It also records that the disciplinary authority had provisionally come to the conclusion that the appellant was not a fit person to be retained in the service of the company and that a major penalty of removal should be imposed under R.25(f). The appellant was given an opportunity of making representation in respect of the penalty proposed as we have noted above.

7. The appellant responded to the show cause notice.

8. By an order dated 22-5-1998 the appellant was removed from service.

9. Challenging the orders of the respondent authorities the appellant filed a writ petition before the High Court. The appellant specifically raised the issue that the disciplinary authority was obliged to give a separate show cause notice if the disciplinary authority differed with the inquiry officer. The High Court also held that there was no need to give two separate show cause notices one before the disciplinary authority found against the employee while differing with the view of the inquiry officer, and another against the proposed punishment. It was further held that the two notices could be combined in one. The writ petition was accordingly dismissed.

10. The conclusion of the High Court was contrary to the consistent view taken by this Court that in case the disciplinary authority differs with the view taken by the inquiry officer, he is bound to give a notice setting out his tentative conclusions to the appellant. It is only after hearing the appellant that the disciplinary authority would at all arrive at a final finding of guilt. Thereafter, the employee would again have to be served with a notice relating to the punishment proposed.

11. In Punjab National Bank v. Kunj Behari Misra, (1998 (7) SCC 84 [LQ/SC/1998/809] : 1998 SCC (L&S) 1783) a Bench of this Court considered Regulation 7(2) of the Punjab National Bank Officer Employees (Discipline and Appeal) Regulations, 1977. The Regulation itself did not provide for the giving of any notice before the disciplinary authority differed with the view of the enquiry officer. This Court held:

"The result of the aforesaid discussion would be that the principles of natural justice have to be read into Regulation 7(2). As a result thereof, whenever the disciplinary authority disagrees with the enquiry authority on any article of charge, then before it records its own findings on such charge, it must record its tentative reasons for such disagreement and give to the delinquent officer an opportunity to represent before it records its findings. The report of the enquiry officer containing its findings will have to be conveyed and the delinquent officer will have an opportunity to persuade the disciplinary authority to accept the favourable conclusion of the enquiry officer. The principles of natural justice, as we have already observed, require the authority which has to take a final decision and can impose a penalty, to give an opportunity to the officer charged of misconduct to file a representation before the disciplinary authority records its findings on the charges framed against the officer."

12. This view has been reiterated in Yoginath D. Bagde v. State of Maharashtra, 1999 (7) SCC 739 [LQ/SC/1999/887] : 1999 SCC (L&S) 1385). In this case also R.9(2) of the Maharashtra Civil Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1979 did not specifically provide for a disciplinary authority to give an opportunity of hearing to the delinquent officer before differing with the view of the enquiry officer. The Court said:

"But the requirement of hearing in consonance with the principles of natural justice even at that stage has to be read into R.9(2) and it has to be held that before the disciplinary authority finally disagrees with the findings of the enquiring authority, it would give an opportunity of hearing to the delinquent officer so that he may have the opportunity to indicate that the findings recorded by the enquiring authority do not suffer from any error and that there was no occasion to take a different view. The disciplinary authority, at the same time, has to communicate to the delinquent officer the TENTATIVE reasons for disagreeing with the findings of the enquiring authority so that the delinquent officer may further indicate that the reasons on the basis of which the disciplinary authority proposes to disagree with the findings recorded by the enquiring authority are not germane and the finding of not guilty already recorded by the enquiring authority was not liable to be interfered with." (See also State Bank of India v. K. P. Narayanan Kutty, (2003 (2) SCC 449 [LQ/SC/2003/60] : 2003 SCC (L&S) 185).

13. We have already quoted the extracts from the show cause notice issued by the disciplinary authority. It is clear that no notice at all was given before the disciplinary authority recorded its final conclusions differing with the finding of fact of the inquiry officer. The notice to show cause was merely a show cause against the proposed punishment. In view of the long line of authorities, the decision of the High Court cannot be sustained. The appeal is accordingly allowed and the decision of the High Court is set aside.

14. The proceedings may be recommenced from the stage of issuance of a fresh show cause notice by the disciplinary authority to the appellant indicating his tentative disagreement with the findings of the inquiry officer.

15. No order as to costs.