(Un-)Just Proceedings: Assessment of Social Impact-Evidence from Employee Suspension Practice in India

The policy and practice link in conducting the disciplinary proceedings is pertinent. The primary goal of this manuscript is to contrast India's approach to government employee discipline with that of eight other advanced nations. The gap between policy and practice in disciplinary proceedings involving accused employees is critically examined in the paper. Nonetheless, the main focus of this research is to investigate how unjust proceedings have affected society. With the help of real-time forensics, this article evaluates the gap between the employee suspension policy and practice. The forensics divulges the abuse of power in the disciplinary process sufficient to compel this article to critically highlight the adverse impacts of the detrimental practice on society. Informed personal interviews with the stakeholders (N = 34) reveal that the employee suspension practice deviates from the policy. Employee suspension evolved as a “state-sanctioned oppression”, a “cruel joke to unemployment”, and a “safe instrument to screen the offence of the powerful”. The two significant findings of the study are, firstly, faulty disciplinary practice increasing social injustice, unemployment and resultant youth violence, and secondly, usage of suspension as an instrument to suppress or screen the traces of offence. Relying on the definitions provided in the verdicts of Indian courts, the manuscript calls for a revisit to the practice in the context of misconduct, malpractice, and victimization. We choose research areas that have not received much attention and create an agenda for the future to decrease the discrepancy.