JUDGMENT : The petitioner, once a branch manager of the respondent rural bank, complains of the irregular procedure in which the inquiry against him was conducted in course of the impugned disciplinary action, the perfunctory findings of the inquiry report without reference to the evidence on record, the failure of the disciplinary authority to invite the petitioner’s response to the findings of the inquiry officer and the complete non-application of mind by the appellate authority to the issues raised against the order of punishment in the departmental appeal. It may not be necessary to travel beyond the first charge levelled against the petitioner to assess the challenge and the perceived irregularity of the process. The petitioner sanctioned a loan of Rs.10 lakh to the proprietor of a gift shop in Siliguri for the purpose of stationery and gift item business. In course of a preliminary inquiry conducted by the bank, it was discovered that the unit did not exist. The petitioner was charged with negligence in lending a sizeable amount to a person without carrying out any verification, particularly end-use verification. The other charges were of like nature of amounts adding up to several crores of rupees in all: of the reckless sanction by the petitioner without proper verification or inspection in respect of a slew of transactions. As regards the first charge, the inquiry officer found that though the pre-sanction and post-sanction inspection reports had apparently been prepared, on a spot verification it was discovered that the unit did not exist. The inquiry officer recorded that the staff movement register maintained by the bank for the relevant period did not record the visit of the petitioner to the relevant unit either for its inspection prior to the sanctioning of the loan or thereafter. The inquiry officer found that letters addressed and mailed to the borrowers were returned unserved on the grounds of “insufficient address” or “not found.” On the basis of such recording of evidence, including the oral evidence on such aspect, the inquiry officer found that the first charge levelled against the petitioner of having granted loan to a fictitious unit had been established. The petitioner has drawn the court’s attention to the examination and cross-examination of one of the management witnesses in connection with the first charge. The petitioner has drawn the court’s attention to the examination and cross-examination of one of the management witnesses in connection with the first charge. The petitioner emphasises that in response to the first question put by the presenting officer to the first witness called by the management, the witness claimed that during the spot verification “one shop at Champasari Main Road is found to have been located with newly painted signboard with name of the proprietor ….. which was closed and borrower not found”. The petitioner seeks to suggest on the basis of the answer to such question that merely because the borrower may have been accidentally absent at the moment that the inspection team arrived at the spot it would not imply that the unit did not exist when there was a signboard pertaining to the unit discovered at the very spot that the borrower indicated as the business address of the unit. What the petitioner has missed out is the answer to the following question where the witness said that the witness with the other bank employees scanned the entire area from Champasari More but did not find either the unit or its proprietor anywhere in the locality. It may not have been necessary to look into the matter in such detail, except to highlight the extent to which the petitioner has attempted to widen the scope of judicial review available in this extraordinary, supervisory jurisdiction. Ordinarily, the evidence is not appraised or re-appraised at this stage, unless the petitioner can show a remarkable finding based on no material at all or a finding which is palpably contradictory to the evidence on record. The imaginary straws that the petitioner seeks to clutch at betray the obvious desperation of an employee sinking under the load of the charges that have been established against him. On the basis of the material pertaining to the first charge and the admitted position that the petitioner did not care to even inspect the unit, either before or after the sanction, the inquiry officer appropriately came to the conclusion that the charge had been established. There is no merit in the petitioner’s assertion that the finding rendered by the inquiry officer in respect of the charge had no nexus with the evidence adduced in respect thereof. The petitioner did not file a written response to the charges levelled against him. There is no merit in the petitioner’s assertion that the finding rendered by the inquiry officer in respect of the charge had no nexus with the evidence adduced in respect thereof. The petitioner did not file a written response to the charges levelled against him. The petitioner did not allege or demonstrate that the petitioner visited the unit either prior to or after the sanction of the loan. The petitioner could not otherwise establish the existence of the unit or even bring the borrowers to scotch the charges. The petitioner has referred to a lame excuse that the petitioner wanted to present some of the borrowers as witnesses but the inquiry officer fixed an inconvenient date for their appearance and did not permit a second chance for the witnesses to be produced. In the context of the petitioner’s conduct that he chose not to respond to the memorandum of charges levelled against him and he again chose not to respond to the findings rendered by the inquiry officer, when the petitioner was forwarded the same by the disciplinary authority, it appears to be a pathetic excuse to suggest that the inquiry was conducted in an irregular manner or without affording any opportunity to the petitioner to present his version. Indeed, upon the petitioner not resorting to any written defence, the inquiry should have been conducted in a summary manner and concluded without as much ado as the records reveal. It is evident from the records that every opportunity was given to the petitioner to cross-examine the witnesses and discredit the material on which the charges were sought to be established against him. The petitioner next says that the disciplinary authority erred in not expressly inviting the petitioner to file his written response to the findings of the inquiry officer. In such regard, the petitioner has referred to the letter of November 24, 2014 and the recording therein of the disciplinary authority’s concurrence with the findings rendered in the inquiry report and the absence of an invitation to the petitioner to deal with the findings. It is open to a disciplinary authority to take several courses of action upon the receipt of an inquiry report. It is open to a disciplinary authority to take several courses of action upon the receipt of an inquiry report. The disciplinary authority may completely disagree with the inquiry report and return the same for a fresh inquiry to be conducted; or the disciplinary authority may disagree with some of the findings and require a fresh inquiry on such aspects; or the disciplinary authority may disagree with some findings and refer the report to the delinquent for the delinquent to deal with such of the findings that are tentatively accepted by the disciplinary authority. The disciplinary authority may even reject all the findings of the inquiry officer rendered against the delinquent and close the matter without further reference. There are other avenues open to the disciplinary authorities which are not exhaustively recorded herein. However, once the disciplinary authority forwards the inquiry officer’s report to the delinquent by indicating the tentative views of the disciplinary authority thereon, it is for the delinquent to deal with the relevant part of the report to try and prevail on the disciplinary authority to take a contrary view. At the time of the disciplinary authority forwarding the inquiry report to the delinquent, the opinion of the disciplinary authority as to his concurrence with the findings of the inquiry report is only tentative. The conclusive opinion is formed after considering the evidence in the inquiry report in support of the charges, the findings rendered in the inquiry report and the delinquent’s representation against the inquiry report. The petitioner has referred to the celebrated judgment reported at (1993) 4 SSC 727 (ECIL v. B. Karunakar) where the Supreme Court noticed the two stages of a disciplinary action: the first concluding with the opinion of the disciplinary authority being formed on the charges levelled against the delinquent; and, the second being the stage of punishment. The petitioner emphasises on the following sentences from paragraph 27 of the report to suggest that not even tentative conclusions can be arrived at by the disciplinary authority prior to the receipt of the representation of the delinquent against the findings of the inquiry report : “26 …Both the dictates of the reasonable opportunity as well as the principles of natural justice, therefore, require that before the disciplinary authority comes to its own conclusions, the delinquent employee should have an opportunity to reply to the enquiry officer’s findings. The disciplinary authority is then required to consider the evidence, the report of the enquiry officer and the representation of the employee against it”. The expression “before the disciplinary authority comes to its own conclusions” used in the relevant passage refers to the final conclusion of the disciplinary authority and not to the tentative view that may be taken immediately upon the receipt of the inquiry report and before deciding whether to proceed further with the disciplinary action. If the tentative view of the disciplinary authority is that the adverse findings against the delinquent should be carried forward, only then is it required of the disciplinary authority to forward the findings of the inquiry report to the delinquent. In the event the disciplinary authority finds that no further action need be taken against the delinquent, the entire proceedings may be dropped and there is no need for the inquiry report to be forwarded to the delinquent. There is, however, some merit in the petitioner’s assertion that the appellate authority did not indicate any reasons in rejecting the petitioner’s appeal. Here, a distinction has to be made between an appellate authority consisting of a solitary individual and an appellate authority being an administrative body comprising several persons. The need for reasons to be furnished before an opinion is formed at every stage of the disciplinary proceedings is to ensure that there is a fair procedure adopted and that due consideration of the matter is made. When reasons are indicated in respect of an opinion or decision, they act as a safeguard against the ipse dixit of the relevant authority and indicate the application of the mind to the matters in issue to show a link between the facts and the conclusion thereon. When the mind is collective in the sense that it is a group of persons like of a board of directors as in this case, the very fact that several persons have applied their minds to the matters in issue to arrive at the uniform conclusion is, by itself, a safeguard against arbitrariness. In administrative law, the collective decision of an appellate body may not be required to contain elaborate reasons as required of an individual officer to justify a decision. In administrative law, the collective decision of an appellate body may not be required to contain elaborate reasons as required of an individual officer to justify a decision. In any event, the facts are so stark and the defence so abjectly non-existent that no reasonable person in the position of any of the authorities at the several stages of the departmental action could have taken a view contrary to that rendered by the inquiry officer and the disciplinary authority that the charges against the petitioner had been proved. It is irrevalent that the charges did not indicate that the petitioner siphoned off the funds, the acts of negligence were so grave in nature that one is left to make one’s inference. The punishment of dismissal from service is just desserts for the petitioner in the light of the grievous acts of recklessness or negligence or possible connivance betrayed by the petitioner in course of his functioning as a branch manager of the respondent rural bank. WP 1535(W) of 2016 is dismissed. Since the petitioner has lost his job, he is spared the costs that this futile exercise should otherwise have earned him.