Abstract:
Principles of natural justice demand that there be no bias of either kind—positive or negative—while ascertaining or assessing allegations against anyone. However, psychologists theorise that humans have a tendency to form opinions regarding many issues and persons depending on multiple psycho-social factors and thereafter, intuitively seek inputs to validate their pre-formed hypotheses. This is how confirmatory reasoning works in the human mind partly unconsciously and partly consciously, which psychologists have sought to establish down the ages. However, this militates against the concept of neutrality and objectivity that are supposed to form the bedrock of justice delivery mechanism in a democratic set-up. The problem assumes critical proportions when it comes to the complex jurisprudence of departmental enquiries where stakeholders like disciplinary authority, inquiry authority, presenting officer and the charged official are all part of the same organisation and thus, run the risk of being subject to some bias or other because of their shared work-environment. Towards the end, the essay also attempts to proffer a tentative solution as to how to get departmental enquiries in government organisations conducted in a relatively un-biased manner.
Key words: Confirmation, Bias, Departmental, Enquiries.
1.1 Introduction: Rules and regulations and laws and bye-laws backed by constitutional mandate in India are put in place to ensure neutrality and objectivity inpublic administration that is expected to be free from personal biases and prejudices. Bureaucracy is expected to pay allegiance to the rules—and not to the makers thereof at a personal level—which are there essentially to uphold the lofty ideals of our Constitution where the last word is said by what has been captured, nay enshrined in its opening words: “We the people…” This quintessential power of “we, the people” is recognised by the Chapter XIV of the Constitution, among others, which effectively seeks to protect the government employees from any potential arbitrariness of their supervisors. The power of a State as an employer is more circumscribed than that of a private employer in as much as it is subject to constitutional limitations and thus, cannot be exercised arbitrarily. Ideally, there shouldn’t be any scope for bias or prejudice and thus, someone appointed in connection with the affairs of the Union or of a State may not be in a position to explicitly reveal his bias or prejudice in an official matter without jeopardising his own position in the organisation.