PO's Initial Perspective on Appointment

What is the course of action you will consider, if the disciplinary authority appoints you as Presenting Officer to present charges against a delinquent officer? What objectives will you pursue? What knowledge resources will you deem as significant to possess to discharge your assignment with proficiency? Many officers are appointed as presenting officers. It is necessary that they understand the core principles underlying this statutory assignment thoroughly to discharge their responsibilities without shortcomings, but with moderation reflecting the true spirit with which a departmental inquiry is to be conducted.

By instinct an officer may feel that he has to demonstrate his efficiency as PO by somehow proving the charges. Otherwise by implication the PO is deemed to have failed in his duty. He may be rated incompetent and as a non-performer in an appraisal of his performance. Proving the charges, therefore, becomes implicitly a mission and one's urge is to get devoted to this goal. This may be the commonly felt approach of many. But is it correct? To fulfill this need, will you stoop to prove that the ocean contains fresh water? That is developing a blatantly incorrect statement and holding the same as true and as proved through the expert presentation of the PO. Can this become a laudable job for a PO and can this be recognised as the role-model?

In an assignment dealing with human resources of the organization you, in fact, deal with the career and future of fellow officers, who until sometime back were deemed part of the organization. Omission to act effectively may lead to incorrect findings by the inquiry authority. This of-course constitutes dereliction of duty. But commission or overdoing is unethical and deserves to be equally condemned, as it may lead to miscarriage of justice. You need to be fair, just and even, and also seem to have acted on good faith and according to proper standards.

This challenge faced by you in your role can be moderated and posed in a different perspective. You may consider, instead as to what are the pitfalls to be avoided and how as PO you can render full justice to your job by both diligently fulfilling your duty as per assignment and also by avoiding injustice being committed by you to the charged officer or harming his bonafide interests, when he should have been absolved of the charges and held as an innocent officer. If you ponder further, you will be happy, if honest, but unfortunate victims of charge sheets, who are erroneously charge sheeted, are not harmed on account of your way of approach to this task, while the really guilty are not allowed to escape. Justice to duty, but injustice to none-innocent appears to be an ideal path in this journey. This is a good motto, but how to x-ray and pre-judge for yourselves whether the charged officer is really guilty or innocent before the inquiry and condition your mindset? This in turn puts the cart before the horse.

The next page approaches this problem methodically and finds a solution.