the promotion etc. cannot be withheld merely because some disciplinary/criminal proceedings are pending against the employee. To deny the said benefit, they must be at the relevant time pending at the stage when charge- memo/charge-sheet has already been issued to the employee.
2) in your case charge sheet has been filed in oct 2013
3) In the decision reported as (1991) 4 SCC 109 Union of India & Ors v K.V.Jankiraman & Ors a three-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court examined the legality of the Office Memorandum dated January 30, 1982 and some other aspects connected thereto. Amongst others one question which had arisen before the Court was:„what is the date from which it can be said that disciplinary/criminal proceedings are pending against an employee?? which question was answered in the following words:-
"16. On the first question, viz., as to when for the purposes of sealed cover procedure the disciplinary/criminal proceeding can be said to have commenced, the Full Bench of the Tribunal has held that it is only when a charge-memo in a disciplinary proceedings or a charge-sheet in a criminal prosecution is issued to the employee that it can be said that the departmental proceedings/criminal prosecution is initiated against the employee. The sealed cover procedure is to be resorted only after the charge-memo/charge-sheet is issued. The pendency of preliminary investigation prior to that stage will not be sufficient to enable the authorities to adopt the sealed cover procedure. We are in agreement with the Tribunal on this point. The contention advanced by the appellant-authorities that when there are serious allegations and it takes time to collect evidence to prepare and issue charge-memo/charge- sheet, it would not be in the interest of the purity of administration to reward the employee with a promotion, increment etc. does not impress us. The acceptance of this contention would result in injustice to the employees in many cases. As has been the experience so far, the preliminary investigations take an inordinately long time and particularly when they are initiated at the instance of the interested persons, they are kept pending deliberately. Many times they never result in the issue of any charge-memo/charge-sheet. If the allegations are serious and the authorities are keen in investigating them, ordinarily it should not take much time to collect the relevant evidence and finalise the charges. What is further, if the charges are that serious, the authorities have the power to suspend the employee under the relevant rules, and the suspension by itself permits a resort to the sealed cover procedure. The authorities are thus not without a remedy. It was then contended on behalf of the authorities that conclusions Nos.1 and 4 of the Full Bench of the Tribunal are inconsistent with each other. These conclusions are as follows: "(1) consideration for promotion, selection grade, crossing the efficiency bar or higher scale of pay cannot be withheld merely on the ground of pendency of a disciplinary or criminal proceedings against an official (2) ....
(3) ....
(4) the sealed cover procedure can be resorted to only after a charge memo is serviced on the concerned official or the charge-sheet is filed before the criminal court and not before.
17. There is no doubt that there is seeming contradiction between the two conclusions. But read harmoniously, and that is what the Full Bench has intended, the two conclusions can be reconciled with each other. The conclusion No.1 should be read to mean that the promotion etc. cannot be withheld merely because some disciplinary/criminal proceedings are pending against the employee. To deny the said benefit, they must be at the relevant time pending at the stage when charge- memo/charge-sheet has already been issued to the employee. Thus read, there is no inconsistency in the two conclusions.