Supreme Court restores Periyar University officer removed on 'could have' charge

The Supreme Court on October 16, 2026 restored a Madras High Court single-judge ruling that had cancelled the 2013 removal of R. Saravanan, a deputy registrar of Periyar University in Salem, Tamil Nadu, holding that the charges against him had been found proved on conjecture rather than evidence. A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar set aside a 2019 order of the High Court's division bench that had upheld his removal. In its judgment, the court said: "The award of punishment of dismissal or removal from service is the harshest measure of punishment and no less than death penalty for the government servant."

Universities in India employ thousands of officers, from registrars and controllers of examinations to deputy registrars who handle admissions, affiliation of colleges and accounts. These posts carry real power, and allegations of influence over college affiliation or examinations are taken seriously. The public interest lies in both directions: wrongdoing must be punished, but staff must not lose their jobs on suspicion alone.

The judgment restates a basic rule of disciplinary law that applies to university staff as much as any government employee. An inquiry must reach its findings on evidence, and a conclusion that someone "could have" done something is not proof that they did. Because removal from service ends a career and a livelihood, the court said, the High Court should not be a mute spectator when such punishment rests on weak findings. That is the context of its remark that dismissal is no less than a death penalty for a government servant.

The ruling also addresses how High Courts handle appeals within themselves. When a single judge has examined an inquiry record and found it wanting, a division bench hearing an appeal should not overturn that view without good reason. The Supreme Court found that the division bench in this case had done so.

For universities and state higher education departments, the practical message is to conduct inquiries carefully, record evidence properly and base conclusions on it. Flawed inquiries not only harm the people accused but can also take more than a decade to resolve, as this case shows: the removal was in 2013 and the final ruling came in 2026.

Short-term: The single judge's order restoring Saravanan's service stands. The university will now have to give effect to that order, including any consequential benefits it provided.

Long-term: The judgment is likely to be cited in service disputes involving university and college staff, especially where disciplinary findings rest on inference rather than evidence, and in appeals where a division bench overturns a single judge.

Who is affected: Teaching and non-teaching staff of state universities and colleges, university administrations and their inquiry officers, state higher education departments, and lawyers handling service cases.

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