Writ petition (Delhi High Court, Avneesh Jhingan J., 03.11.2025) challenging the disciplinary authority's order dated 11.12.2023 removing the petitioner, an employee of Punjab National Bank (successor to Oriental Bank of Commerce, joined 26.09.2011), from service, and the appellate authority's order dated 17.09.2025 dismissing his appeal — DISMISSED. The petitioner absented from duty from 13.01.2020 till termination. His plea that depression and anxiety aggravated after his wife's surgery and abortion was held a bald statement unsupported by any medical evidence produced in the enquiry, in appeal, or before the Court; the homeopathic certificate dated 27.02.2024 (treatment 05.01.2023–26.02.2024) and the certificate dated 30.03.2024 (from 08.03.2024) did not explain the absence, and illness from 13.01.2020 to 04.01.2023 remained unproved. His emails were requests for transfer, not offers to join at the place of posting; the email dated 20.04.2020 showed a query about joining the nearest branch, evidencing that he had left the station without informing the bank. He ignored the bank's letters dated 14.02.2020, 11.11.2020, 09.06.2021 and 26.07.2022 and final reminder dated 16.03.2023, and neither participated in the enquiry nor responded to the enquiry report despite reminders dated 06.11.2023 and 18.11.2023; the claim that this was due to mental illness remained unsubstantiated. The proposition in Krushnakant B. Parmar v. Union of India, (2012) 3 SCC 178 — that unauthorized absence is not willful if consequent to compelling circumstances — was accepted, but held inapplicable as the petitioner failed to substantiate compelling circumstances. Termination had been effected after enquiry under Regulation 6 of the Punjab National Bank Officer Employees’ (Discipline & Appeal) Regulations, 1977, and the appellate authority rightly upheld it; four years of unexplained deliberate absence left no case for writ interference.
