New Delhi, Feb. 16: The Supreme Court today said a government employee cannot be kept under suspension for more than 90 days if charges are not served by then.

The court said if Section 167(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code prohibits the detention of an accused in a criminal case beyond 90 days if the chargesheet is not filed, there is no reason why the same logic should not apply to suspended government employees.

'It is true that the proviso to Section 167(2) CrPC postulates personal freedom, but respect and preservation of human dignity as well as the right to a speedy trial should also be placed on the same pedestal,' the court said, directing that suspension should not extend beyond three months if the charges are not served on the employee concerned within this period.

'If the memorandum of charges/ chargesheet is served, a reasoned order must be passed for the extension of the suspension,' the court added.

The bench of Justices Vikramjit Sen and C. Nagappan said the government was free to transfer such an employee to any department within or outside the respective state 'so as to sever any local or personal contact' that can be used to obstruct the investigation. The government may also prohibit the employee 'from contacting any person, or handling records and documents' till the stage of preparing the defence, it said.

'We think this will adequately safeguard the universally recognised principle of human dignity and the right to a speedy trial and shall also preserve the interest of the government in the prosecution.'

The ruling assumes significance as hundreds of government employees at the Centre and in states are under indefinite suspension.

It came on an appeal by Ajay Kumar Choudhary, a defence estate officer employed with the defence ministry, who has been under suspension from June 15, 2014, for his alleged role in a defence land scam in Jammu in 2008-2009.

Justice Sen said: 'Suspension, specially preceding the formulation of charges, is essentially transitory or temporary in nature, and must perforce be of short duration. If it is for an indeterminate period or if its renewal is not based on sound reasoning contemporaneously available on the record, this would render it punitive in nature.'

The judgment further said: 'Departmental/ disciplinary proceedings invariably commence with delay, are plagued with procrastination prior and post the drawing up of the memorandum of charges, and eventually culminate after even longer delay. Protracted periods of suspension, repeated renewal thereof, have regrettably become the norm and not the exception that they ought to be.

'The suspended person suffering the ignominy of insinuations, the scorn of society and the derision of his department, has to endure this excruciation even before he is formally charged with some misdemeanour, indiscretion or offence.'

The judges also noted that 'much too often this has now become an accompaniment to retirement.'

However, today's judgment will not benefit Choudhary, who filed the appeal, because a chargesheet had already been filed against him by the department.