Road accident isn’t moral turpitude, says HC; strikes down Nashik prof’s suspension

The Bombay High Court has struck down the suspension of Dr S D Nikam, an associate professor in Nashik, stating that his involvement in a road accident case does not constitute an act of moral turpitude.

MUMBAI: Does involvement in a road accident case constitute an act of moral turpitude? Authorities at a college in Nashik where Dr S D Nikam was employed as associate professor thought so and suspended him from service in November 2022. But Nikam felt otherwise and approached the Bombay high court with a plea for relief.

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A division bench of the high court struck down Nikam’s suspension order on Monday, with justices GS Kulkarni and Jitendra Jain ruling that the charge of moral turpitude against him was ‘not tenable’. The court said moral turpitude referred to actions that were contrary to justice, honesty, modesty or good morals or actions that showed gross depravity – none of which were applicable in Nikam’s case.

Nikam was an associate professor of accountancy at RNC Arts, JDB Commerce and NSC Science College at Nashik Road. He was suspended on November 28, 2022, ten days after a first information report (FIR) was registered against him under sections 279, 308, 337, 338 of the Indian Penal Code and sections 132, 134(A), 134(B), 179, 187, 184 and 185 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. The case was registered at the Mumbai Naka Police Station in Nashik city after his car collided with another vehicle, and he was kept in police custody for over 48 hours.

The suspension order stated that Nikam was placed under suspension after registration of the FIR against him, in terms of statute 433-A(3) of the University of Pune, which provides for procedure for infliction of major penalties.

In the high court, Nikam’s counsel, advocate Pramod Joshi, argued that the clause provides for ‘suspension’ only if the offence involves ‘moral turpitude’, and since the registration of an FIR does not involve moral turpitude, the associate professor should not have been suspended.

The college and the educational trust, however, opposed his plea on various grounds. Their counsel, advocate Vishwanath Talkute, argued that Nikam was suspended not only for registration of an offence involving moral turpitude but also because he spent over 48 hours in custody.

The argument, however, failed to impress the judges. They said the University statute that regulated the associate professor’s service conditions only provided ground for ‘moral turpitude’, excluded offences that did not involve and attract morality, baseness, vileness or depravity in private and social duties.

“We are more than satisfied that respondent numbers 1 (education society) and 3 (college) were not correct, and/or were illegal, to hold that merely because the petitioner was involved in a motor vehicle accident leading to registration of the FIR, in which he was arrested and suffered custody for more than 48 hours, the petitioner was likely to be guilty of an offence involving moral turpitude,” said justices Kulkarni and Jain.

“In the facts of the present case, it cannot be held that the petitioner should suffer suspension on the grounds of him being involved in an offence involving moral turpitude,” it added and struck down the order suspending Nikam.