Title - Railway man axed over Rs 387 gets relief

CHENNAI: What can a paltry Rs 387 do to a government employee? A lot — even cost him his job — as railway ticket inspector N Gopal Raman learnt to his dismay.Handling three coaches in a train running between Coimbatore and Erode in December 2003, Gopal Raman, a deputy chief ticket inspector at that time, was found to be carrying Rs 387 "excess" cash by a vigilance squad.His explanation that he checked 254 passengers and issued 17 excess fare tickets during the 90-minute travel, and that his personal cash, too, got mixed with the day's collection, did not cut ice with vigilance personnel. He was charged with misconduct. At the end of a five-year-long inquiry, he was removed from service in April 2008 for having "failed to maintain absolute integrity, devotion to duty and for having acted in a manner unbecoming of a government servant."His appeal against the order yielded him a small relief — instead of removal from service, his axing was treated as "compulsory retirement".Gopal Raman knocked at the doors of the Madras bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), saying the authorities did not take cognizance of the pressure under which he had to check 254 tickets and issue excess fare tickets to 17 people in 90 minutes. There was no complaint from any of the passengers travelling on the train, he said.

The railways remained unmoved during the proceedings, saying that as a supervisory staff member, Gopal Raman should have declared his private cash when he signed in the muster and started his work. He even claimed that a friend had given him Rs 375 at the Erode station, it pointed out. "It has been proved that the person was in possession of excess cash and the natural corollary is that he had demanded and accepted illegal gratification from the passengers on board," it said.

A CAT bench comprising judicial member G Shanthappa and administrative member R Satapathy held that the quantum of punishment imposed on Gopal Raman was grossly disproportionate to the charges levelled against him. While desisting from prescribing any particular punishment to him, the bench said the appellate authority in the railways should have imposed any major penalty other than dismissal or compulsory removal from service.

Quashing his compulsory retirement, the bench referred the matter back to the railways for reconsideration, but said Gopal Raman was not entitled to claim compensation for the period when he was out of service. The service, however, shall count for all other purposes, including pension, the bench said adding that the matter should be decided in three months.