What is the effect of delay on the validity of the proceedings?

22. What is the effect of delay on the validity of the proceedings? Delay may be of two types – delay in issue of charge sheet and secondly, delay in the conduct of proceedings. Hon’ble Central Administrative Tribunal (Principal Bench) in its decision dated 23.4.2010, in Ashish Abrol, Joint Commissioner of Income Tax Vs. Union of India (UOI) through The Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue and Director General of Income Tax (Vigilance) [MANU/CA/0171/2010] analysed a number of decisions on the subject and clarified the position in the following paragraph: 86 16. The sum and substance of the judgments is that: the competent authority should be able to give an explanation for the inordinate delay in issuing the Memorandum of Charge; the charges should be of such serious nature, the investigation of which would take a long time and would have to be pursued secretly; the nature of charges would be such as to take a long time to detect such as embezzlement and fabrication of false records; if the alleged misconduct is grave and a large number of documents and statement of witnesses had to be looked into, delay can be considered to be valid; the Court has to consider the nature of charge, its complexity and on what account the delay has occurred; how long a delay is too long always depends on the facts of the given case; if the delay is likely to cause prejudice to the Charged Officer in defending himself, the enquiry has to be interdicted; and the Court should weigh the factors appearing for and against the disciplinary proceedings and take a decision on the totality of circumstances. In other words, the Court has to indulge in the process of balancing.