Delhi High Court – Orders
Prakash Krishna Shambharkar vs Airports Authority Of India on 3 July, 2026
Author: Sanjeev Narula
Bench: Sanjeev Narula
$~33
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
+ W.P.(C) 11490/2021
PRAKASH KRISHNA SHAMBHARKAR .....Petitioner
Through: Mr. V. Shashank Kumar, Advocate.
versus
AIRPORTS AUTHORITY OF INDIA .....Respondent
Through: Mr. Digvijay Rai, Standing Counsel
for AAI with Mr. Archit Mishra,
Advocate along with Ms. Tanya
Rohilla, Manager (Law), Mr. Jayesh
Bhargava JE (Law).
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANJEEV NARULA
ORDER
% 03.07.2026
CM APPL. 40293/2026 (condonation of delay of 84 days in filing review
petition)
1. For the grounds and reasons stated in the application, the delay of 84
days in filing the review petition is condoned.
2. Accordingly, the application stands disposed of.
REVIEW PET. 280/2026
3. The Petitioner seeks review of the order dated 23rd January, 2026, by
which the writ petition was dismissed. By the said order, this Court declined
to interfere with the disciplinary proceedings and the penalty of compulsory
retirement with retiral benefits imposed upon the Petitioner by the Airports
W.P.(C) 11490/2021 Page 1 of 12
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Authority of India [“AAI”].
4. The review petition is principally founded on the subsequent
judgment dated 25th March, 2026 passed by the Special Judge (PC Act),
CBI-02, Rouse Avenue Court Complex, New Delhi, in CBI/378/2019, titled
Central Bureau of Investigation v. Alok Kumar Sharan & Ors. The
Petitioner was arrayed as Accused No. 3 in the said criminal case. The
criminal prosecution, as also the departmental proceedings, arose from the
same two communications dated 6th January, 2007 and 25th June, 2007
issued by the Petitioner while he was posted as Airport Controller at Raipur
Airport.
5. Mr. V. Shashank Kumar, counsel for the Petitioner, submits that the
findings recorded in the order under review require reconsideration
considering the subsequent judgment of the Special Court. Reliance is
placed upon the discussion in the Special Court’s judgment concerning the
nature and effect of the two communications. It is submitted that the
criminal court has, inter alia, held that the communication dated 6th January,
2007 did not purport to be a No Objection Certificate [“NOC”] issued by the
AAI Headquarters; the communication dated 25th June, 2007, having regard
to its language, likewise did not purport to be such an NOC; the applicable
Civil Aviation Requirements [“CAR”] did not unambiguously establish that
such communications could only emanate from the Headquarters of AAI;
and the Petitioner, in his capacity as Airport Controller, was competent to
issue communications concerning local operational and flying coordination
at the airport.
6. On the aforesaid basis, it is contended that the findings recorded by
this Court in the order under review, particularly that the impugned
W.P.(C) 11490/2021 Page 2 of 12
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communications carried institutional weight and were capable of being
utilised as operational comfort letters, stand undermined by the subsequent
criminal court judgment and therefore warrant reconsideration. The
Petitioner has also sought to re-agitate the grounds relating to absence of
mala fides, non-examination of witnesses during the departmental inquiry,
denial of cross-examination, delay in initiation of the disciplinary
proceedings, disproportionality of the punishment, selective action, and
defects in the constitution of the Appellate Authority as well as in the
communication of the appellate order.
7. The Court has considered the grounds urged for seeking review. The
issue is not whether the material on record is capable of sustaining another
view. Nor does the present proceeding confer a right to re-argue the
correctness of the order dated 23rd January, 2026 as if in appeal. The review
jurisdiction is limited. It is attracted only where there is discovery of “new
and important matter or evidence” which, despite the exercise of due
diligence, could not be produced earlier; where there exists an “error
apparent on the face of the record”; or where any other sufficient reason,
analogous to the recognised grounds of review, is demonstrated. A review
proceeding is not an avenue for rehearing the lis on merits. It is intended to
correct manifest errors, not to revisit concluded findings. Consequently, a
party cannot invoke the review jurisdiction merely because it perceives the
earlier reasoning to be erroneous or because another forum, acting in a
distinct proceeding and applying a different standard of proof, has arrived at
a contrary conclusion. Such circumstances may furnish a ground of
challenge in appeal, but they do not constitute a ground for review.
W.P.(C) 11490/2021 Page 3 of 12
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8. In State of West Bengal & Ors. v. Kamal Sengupta & Anr.1, the
Supreme Court explained that an error apparent on the face of the record
must be one which is evident per se and does not require a long-drawn
process of reasoning to establish. It further held that a subsequent decision
or subsequent development cannot ordinarily furnish a ground for review.
Similarly, in Lily Thomas & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors.2, the Supreme
Court reiterated that review jurisdiction is intended to correct a patent error
and not to substitute one view for another, and that a review petition cannot
be treated as an appeal in disguise.
9. Applying the aforesaid principles, the judgment of the Special Court
dated 25th March, 2026 cannot be relied upon to establish an “error apparent
on the face of the record” in the order under review. The order sought to be
reviewed was rendered on 23rd January, 2026 and must be examined with
reference to the material available at that stage. The judgment of the Special
Court was rendered subsequently and, therefore, did not form part of the
record before this Court when the order under review was passed. Review
jurisdiction is not a vehicle for reopening a concluded adjudication on the
basis of subsequent events or later pronouncements. An order that was
correct when rendered does not become erroneous merely because, at a later
stage, another forum arrives at a different conclusion on the same or related
facts. The subsequent judgment of the Special Court, therefore, furnishes no
ground for review.
10. The Petitioner seeks to bring the judgment of the Special Court within
the expression “new and important matter or evidence”. This submission
1
(2008) 8 SCC 612.
2
(2000) 6 SCC 224.
W.P.(C) 11490/2021 Page 4 of 12
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also cannot be accepted in the manner urged. What is relied upon is not
evidence or material which existed but could not, despite the exercise of due
diligence, be produced earlier; rather, it is a subsequent judicial appreciation
of the evidence led before the Special Court. Such appreciation may furnish
a circumstance in an appropriate substantive proceeding, subject to law; but
it cannot, by itself, be treated as newly discovered evidence so as to reopen a
concluded judgment in review.
11. There is yet another, and more fundamental, reason why the judgment
of the Special Court cannot furnish a ground for review. Criminal
proceedings and departmental proceedings are conceptually distinct and
serve different juridical purposes. A criminal Court is concerned with the
question whether an offence has been proved beyond reasonable doubt so as
to attract penal consequences. A disciplinary authority, on the other hand,
examines whether the conduct of the employee conforms to the standards of
discipline, integrity and responsibility expected of a member of the service.
The standard of proof in the two proceedings is correspondingly different.
While guilt in a criminal trial must be established beyond reasonable doubt,
a finding in a disciplinary proceeding may legitimately rest on a
preponderance of probabilities. It follows that the result of a criminal trial
does not automatically determine the validity of disciplinary action. A
criminal acquittal may signify no more than the prosecution’s inability to
establish guilt to the exacting standard demanded by criminal law; it does
not necessarily negate the existence of material sufficient to sustain
disciplinary findings.
12. The Supreme Court has consistently held that acquittal in a criminal
case does not, by itself, debar an employer from proceeding departmentally
W.P.(C) 11490/2021 Page 5 of 12
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or automatically result in exoneration in disciplinary proceedings, since
criminal and departmental proceedings operate in different fields and are
governed by different standards of proof.3 The exception recognised in
decisions such as M. Paul Anthony v. Bharat Gold Mines Ltd. & Anr.4 and
G.M. Tank v. State of Gujarat & Ors.5 applies where the criminal and
departmental proceedings arise out of the same set of facts, involve identical
charges and are founded on the same evidence and witnesses, and the
employee is acquitted by the criminal Court upon a finding that the charges
have not been proved. In such exceptional and peculiar circumstances, the
Supreme Court held that permitting the departmental findings to stand
would be “unjust, unfair and rather oppressive”.
13. In the departmental proceedings, the central issue was not whether a
criminal offence stood established, but whether the Petitioner’s conduct,
viewed in the context of the two communications in question, the issue of
competence and authority, and the institutional repercussions flowing from
their issuance, justified disciplinary action. Moreover, while exercising
jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution, this Court was not sitting
in appeal over the disciplinary findings but was concerned only with the
well-settled parameters of judicial review, namely, whether the findings
were perverse, unsupported by evidence, vitiated by procedural unfairness
causing prejudice, or whether the penalty imposed was shockingly
disproportionate. The subsequent judgment of the Special Court, rendered
on the basis of a materially different evidentiary record and for an altogether
3
See: Ajit Kumar Nag v. General Manager (PJ), Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (2005) 7 SCC 764;
Divisional Controller, KSRTC v. M.G. Vittal Rao (2012) 1 SCC 442.
4
(1999) 3 SCC 679.
5
(2006) 5 SCC 446.
W.P.(C) 11490/2021 Page 6 of 12
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different purpose, cannot therefore be treated as determinative of the issues
that arose in the disciplinary proceedings or in the writ proceedings.
14. In the order under review, this Court did not proceed on the narrow or
formal premise that the two communications were titled as “No Objection
Certificates”. The inquiry before the Court was broader: whether, having
regard to their text, setting and subsequent regulatory use, the
communications could legitimately be viewed by the disciplinary authority
as unauthorised communications carrying institutional assurance on behalf
of AAI. The Petitioner’s contention that the letter dated 6th January, 2007
itself required the proponent to obtain the necessary permission/NOC from
the AAI Corporate Headquarters was specifically noticed. The Court
nevertheless held that the disciplinary authority was entitled to read the
document as a whole and in its regulatory context. On that approach, the
conclusion that the Petitioner had conveyed an assurance beyond the
authority available to him at the station level was found to be a plausible
inference, and not a finding suffering from perversity or “no evidence”.
15. The same approach was adopted in relation to the communication
dated 25th June, 2007. The Petitioner’s explanation that the said
communication was merely a coordination-related response concerning local
flying operations at Bilaspur was duly considered. However, the disciplinary
authority had before it the language of the communication, including the
expression “NO OBJECTION”, the surrounding circumstance that it was
utilised in the regulatory process, and the institutional position that an NOC
of such character on behalf of AAI could not have emanated from the
Petitioner at the station level. This Court, while exercising judicial review,
did not sit as the original fact-finding authority. It examined only whether
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the disciplinary conclusion was one that no reasonable authority could have
reached. The conclusion arrived at was that the finding of misconduct was
supported by some material and did not warrant interference on the limited
grounds governing the exercise of jurisdiction under Article 226.
16. The Special Court has examined the same two communications and
has interpreted them differently. It has held that the letter dated 6 th January,
2007 did not purport to be an NOC from the AAI Headquarters; the
communication dated 25th June, 2007, having regard to its language,
likewise did not purport to be such an NOC; and any ambiguity in the
applicable CAR had to enure to the benefit of the accused. Those findings
were rendered in the course of a criminal trial, where the prosecution was
required to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. They do not, on their
own, negate a concluded disciplinary finding tested on the standard of
preponderance of probabilities. Nor do they demonstrate that the order under
review suffers from an error apparent on the face of the record. At the
highest, the judgment of the Special Court demonstrates that another view of
the two communications was possible. That is insufficient to invoke the
review jurisdiction, particularly when the order under review had already
held that the view taken by the disciplinary authority was a plausible one
and not a perverse or “no evidence” finding.
17. The Petitioner’s reliance on the observations of the Special Court
regarding the absence of mala fides also does not advance the review
petition. The disciplinary finding was not founded upon proof of conspiracy,
corruption, pecuniary gain, or criminal intent in the strict penal sense; it
rested on the Petitioner’s issuance of communications which, according to
the disciplinary authority, exceeded his station-level authority and carried
W.P.(C) 11490/2021 Page 8 of 12
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institutional assurance in a regulated aviation environment. Misconduct in
service law is not invariably co-extensive with criminality. An act may fail
to satisfy the ingredients of a penal offence and yet amount to misconduct
where it transgresses institutional discipline, exceeds authority, or
compromises an established protocol of official functioning. The decisions
relied upon by the Petitioner, including Inspector Prem Chand v. GNCTD
& Ors.6 and Zunjarrao Bhikaji Nagarkar v. UOI & Ors.7, do not lay down
an absolute proposition that misconduct can arise only where criminal mens
rea is established. They recognise that a mere error of judgment, negligence
simpliciter or a wrong interpretation of law, without anything more, does not
constitute misconduct. They do not assist an employee where the
disciplinary authority has found, on the material before it, that the officer
acted beyond the authority vested in him in a sensitive regulatory setting.
The order under review proceeded precisely on this distinction: the issue
was not whether the Petitioner had committed a criminal offence, but
whether the disciplinary authority’s conclusion that he had issued
communications beyond his authority was plausible and supported by
material.
18. The contention regarding the absence of office copies and dispatch
records also discloses no ground for review. The order under review did not
treat the non-availability of office copies or dispatch records as the sole or
independent foundation of guilt. Rather, it observed that the inability to
produce the same was a relevant circumstance in assessing the propriety of
issuance of the communications, and that the disciplinary authority was
6
(2007) 4 SCC 566.
7
(1999) 7 SCC 409.
W.P.(C) 11490/2021 Page 9 of 12
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entitled to treat this circumstance as aggravating, even though it was not, by
itself, the sole foundation of guilt. It was considered only in conjunction
with the other material relied upon by the disciplinary authority concerning
communications which, in a regulated aviation framework, were capable of
affecting third-party permissions and regulatory processing. The Petitioner
places reliance on the observations of the Special Court regarding the
issuance of Air Defence Clearance [“ADC”] and Flight Information Centre
[“FIC”] numbers to contend that AAI itself accepted the communications
for operational purposes. The Special Court, after recording oral evidence in
the criminal trial, relied upon the said circumstance while returning its
findings on the evidentiary record before it. That conclusion, however, was
reached on the basis of the evidence adduced before the Special Court and
on the standard of proof applicable to criminal proceedings. It does not
furnish a ground to review the earlier order of this Court, which merely
examined whether the view adopted by the disciplinary authority was a
plausible one and whether the absence of such records could legitimately be
treated as a relevant surrounding circumstance.
19. The procedural objections regarding the non-examination of
witnesses, denial of cross-examination, and reliance on internal office
notings also disclose no ground for review. The order under review
considered these submissions and held that the charge rested principally on
documentary material, namely, the two communications, their language,
their regulatory use, and the Petitioner’s competence to issue them. The
communications themselves were never alleged to be fabricated, while their
authorship stood supported by the forensic opinion noticed during the
disciplinary proceedings. The Petitioner failed to demonstrate that any
W.P.(C) 11490/2021 Page 10 of 12
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specific request to summon or cross-examine a material witness had been
refused or that any concrete prejudice had thereby been occasioned. The
internal office notings were not the sole foundation of the disciplinary
findings. The present review petition merely seeks a reconsideration of
issues which were expressly examined and rejected in the order under
review. Such a rehearing falls outside the limited scope of review
jurisdiction.
20. The Petitioner’s reliance on LIC of India & Anr. v. Ram Pal Singh
Bisen8 does not alter the position. In that decision, the Supreme Court held
that, in a civil suit challenging the validity of a departmental enquiry, the
employer was required to prove the documents relied upon in accordance
with the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 [“IEA”], and that mere marking of a
document as an exhibit did not dispense with such proof. That principle
arose in the context of proving documents before a civil court and cannot be
transposed mechanically to the conduct of a departmental enquiry, which is
not governed by the strict rules of IEA. The governing test in disciplinary
proceedings is whether the delinquent employee had a fair opportunity to
meet the case against him and whether any procedural departure occasioned
real prejudice. That is the test applied in the order under review.
21. The remaining grounds relating to the delay in issuance of the charge-
sheet, proportionality of the penalty, alleged selective action, constitution of
the Appellate Authority, and communication of the appellate order do not
arise from the subsequent judgment of the Special Court. They were either
available to the Petitioner at the time of the writ proceedings or were
considered, in substance, while examining the validity of the disciplinary
W.P.(C) 11490/2021 Page 11 of 12
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and appellate orders. A review petition cannot be utilised to improve upon
grounds already urged, to place fresh emphasis on matters previously
argued, or to invite this Court to sit in appeal over its own judgment.
22. On the question of proportionality, the subsequent acquittal does not
compel reconsideration of the penalty in review. The penalty was examined
in the order under review, based on the misconduct found proved in the
departmental proceedings. This Court held that, having regard to the
Petitioner’s position in Air Traffic Management and the nature of the
communications issued in a regulated aviation environment, the penalty of
compulsory retirement with retiral benefits could not be characterised as
“disproportionate”. The subsequent conclusion of the Special Court that the
prosecution failed to establish the criminal charges beyond reasonable doubt
does not, by itself, alter that disciplinary assessment.
23. For the foregoing reasons, the review petition is dismissed. Pending
applications, if any, also stand disposed of.
SANJEEV NARULA, J
JULY 3, 2026/ab
8
(2010) 4 SCC 491.
W.P.(C) 11490/2021 Page 12 of 12
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