Allahabad High Court
Dr. Manoj Kumar vs State Of U.P. And 2 Others on 29 May, 2025
Author: Ajit Kumar
Bench: Ajit Kumar
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:92836
Court No. - 4
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 6881 of 2025
Petitioner :- Dr. Manoj Kumar
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 2 Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Siddharth Khare
Counsel for Respondent :- Avneesh Tripathi,C.S.C.,M.N. Singh
Hon'ble Ajit Kumar,J.
1. Heard Shri Himanshu Singh, learned Advocate holding brief of Shri Siddharth Khare, learned counsel for petitioner, Shri Avneesh Tripathi, learned counsel appearing for Public Service Commission and learned Standing Counsel.
2. Petitioner who is working as Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer, employment under the State Government, has challenged the order dated 29.04.2025 passed by the State Government imposing upon him major penalty of reversion to a lower post with the approval of the Public Service Commission.
3. The main plank of the argument has been that the entire departmental enquiry was held in slip shod manner as no opportunity of hearing was afforded by the enquiry officer and action has come to be taken treating the findings returned by the enquiry officer bringing home the charge as the foundation. This Court considering this legal argument advanced by learned counsel for petitioner that enquiry procedures as contemplated under Rule 7 of the U.P. Government Servant (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1999 for major penalty were not followed, the original records were summoned relating to disciplinary proceedings on 17.05.2025. Today the original records have been placed before the Court and upon perusal of the same following fact chronologically emerges before the Court.
(i) Charge sheet was issued to the petitioner on 12.08.2024.
(ii) Petitioner submitted a detailed reply on 01.10.2024.
(iii) The reply of the petitioner was forwarded to the enquiry officer on 04.10.2024.
(iv) The enquiry officer submitted his final enquiry report as contemplated under the Discipline and Appeal Rules, 1999 on 16.12.2024 holding petitioner guilty of the charges levelled in the charge sheet.
(v) Considering the findings returned by the enquiry officer in the enquiry report petitioner was issued with the show cause notice on 31.12.2024.
(vi) A reminder letter to the show cause notice requiring the petitioner to reply was issued on 27.01.2025.
(vii) Internal correspondence in the records shows that Deputy Secretary Government of Uttar Pradesh wrote a letter to the Director on 10.01.2025 to send information regarding acknowledgement of service of notice upon petitioner within two days.
(viii) On 03.03.2025 Deputy Secretary asked for report regarding suspended employee, namely, the petitioner.
(ix) on 06.03.2025 letter was written to the Secretary Public Service Commission, Prayagraj for necessary approval of the proposed action qua the penalty to be imposed upon the petitioner.
(x) On 11.04.2025 reminder letter was send to the Public Service Commission.
(xi) on 24.04.2025 Public Service Commission accorded approval to the proposed punishment of reversion.
(xii) on 29.04.2025 the impugned order came to be passed.
4. From the perusal of the records it transpires clearly that departmental enquiry against the petitioner was concluded within a period of twelve days i.e. less than two weeks as the reply of the petitioner was forwarded by the competent authority to the enquiry officer on 04.10.2024 and the enquiry report was submitted on 16.12.2024. Recitals contained in the entire enquiry report are absolutely silent regarding any notice given ever to the petitioner to appear before the enquiry officer to get his statement recorded, nor any letter is mentioned that petitioner was ever afforded any opportunity to submit details of the persons if he wanted to cross-examine. The enquiry report also does not record any date or time when it could be claimed that any departmental witness was orally examined.
5. Thus, it is clear that the entire departmental enquiry was conducted in camera on the back of the petitioner and the enquiry officer failed to even record the statement of departmental witness before arriving at a conclusion that charges levelled in the charge sheet deserved to be brought home. This in my considered view, cannot be held to be a proper enquiry as contemplated under Rule 7 of the 1991 Rules which are reproduced hereunder:
"7. Procedure for imposing major penalties. -
Before imposing any major penalty on a Government servant, an inquiry shall be held in the following manner :
(i)The disciplinary authority may himself inquire into the charges or appoint an authority subordinate to him as Inquiry Officer to inquire into the charges.
(ii)The facts constituting the misconduct on which it is proposed to take action shall be reduced in the form of definite charge or charges to be called charge-sheet. The charge-sheet shall be approved by the disciplinary authority :Provided that where the appointing authority is Governor, the charge-sheet may be approved by the Principal Secretary or the Secretary; as the case may be, of the concerned department.
(iii)The charges framed shall be so precise and clear as to give sufficient indication to the charged Government servant of the facts and circumstances against him. The proposed documentary evidence and the name of the witnesses proposed to prove the same alongwith oral evidence, if any, shall be mentioned in the charge-sheet.
(iv)The charged Government servant shall be required to put in a written statement of his defence in person on a specified date which shall not be less than 15 days from the date of issue of charge-sheet and to state whether he desires to cross-examine any witness mentioned in the charge-sheet and whether desires to give or produce evidence in his defence. He shall also be informed that in case he does not appear or file the written statement on the specified date, it will be presumed that he has none to furnish and Inquiry Officer shall proceed to complete the inquiry ex parte.
(v)The charge-sheet, alongwith the copy of the documentary evidences mentioned therein and list of witnesses and their statements, if any shall be served on the charged Government servant personally or by registered post at the address mentioned in the official records. In case the charge-sheet could not be served in aforesaid manner, the charge-sheet shall be served by publication in a daily newspaper having wide circulation :
Provided that where the documentary evidence is voluminous, instead of furnishing its copy with charge-sheet, the charged Government servant shall be permitted to inspect the same before the Inquiry Officer.
(vi) Where the charged Government servant appears and admits the charges, the Inquiry Officer shall submit his report to the disciplinary authority on the basis of such admission.
(vii) Where the charged Government servant denies the charges, the Inquiry Officer shall proceed to call the witnesses proposed in the charge-sheet and record their oral evidence in presence of the charged Government servant who shall be given opportunity to cross-examine such witnesses. After recording the aforesaid evidence, the Inquiry Officer shall call and record the oral evidence which the charged Government servant desired in his written statement to be produced in his defence :
Provided that the Inquiry Officer may for reasons to be recorded in writing refuse to call a witness.
(viii)The Inquiry Officer may summon any witness to give evidence or require any person to produce documents before him in accordance with the provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Departmental Inquiries (Enforcement of Attendance of Witnesses and Production of Documents) Act, 1976.
(ix)The Inquiry Officer may ask any question he pleases, at any time of any witness or from person charged with a view to discover the truth or to obtain proper proof of facts relevant to charges.
(x)Where the charged Government servant does not appear on the date fixed in the inquiry or at any stage of the proceeding inspite of the service of the notice on him or having knowledge of the date, the Inquiry Officer shall proceed with the inquiry ex parte. In such a case the Inquiry Officer shall record the statement of witnesses mentioned in the charge-sheet in absence of the charged Government servant.
(xi)The disciplinary authority, if it considers it necessary to do so, may, by an order appoint a Government servant or a legal practitioner, to be known as "Presenting Officer" to present on its behalf the case in support of the charge.
(xii)The Government servant may take the assistance of any other Government servant to present the case on his behalf but not engage a legal practitioner for the purpose unless the Presenting Officer appointed by the disciplinary authority is a legal practitioner of the disciplinary authority having regard to the circumstances of the case so permits :
Provided that this rule shall not apply in following cases :
(i)Where any major penalty is imposed on a person on the ground of conduct which has led to his conviction on a criminal charge; or
(ii)Where the disciplinary authority is satisfied that for reason to be recorded by it in writing, that it is not reasonably practicable to hold an inquiry in the manner provided in these rules; or
(iii)Where the Governor is satisfied that, in the interest of the security of the State, it is not expedient to hold an inquiry in the manner provided in these rules."
(emphasis added)
6. Upon a bare reading of the aforesaid rules, two legal position clearly emerge out:-
A. If the delinquent employee denies the charges then it is a duty cast upon the enquiry officer to record the statement, to give opportunity of hearing the departmental witnesses.
B. In the event delinquent employee refused to get himself examined or refuses to cross-examine the departmental witnesses then the enquiry officer would proceed to record the statement of the departmental witnesses on its own.
7. In a nutshell there has to be an oral enquiry to be conducted under Rule 7 in order to bring home the charge which I find quite lacking in the enquiry report itself and thus, the enquiry itself is liable to be held as a flawed one.
8. Besides the above, the original records relating to disciplinary proceedings that have been placed before the Court do not bear any postal receipt or any endorsement of any class IV or class III employee who might have serve the show cause notice to the petitioner along with enquiry report. The show cause notice is very much on record along with reminder letter thereof but no endorsement of any officer is there to the effect that petitioner refused to accept the show cause notice. This justifies, therefore, the pleadings raised by the petitioner in paragraph-41 of the writ petition that no show cause notice was issued to the petitioner, nor any copy of the enquiry report was supplied to him. What is interesting to notice from the record is that the reminder letter to the show cause notice dated 27.01.2025 records that petitioner did not raise any demand to examine or cross-examine the departmental witnesses before the enquiry officer and in this regard it has referred to a letter written by the petitioner on 01.10.2024. In my considered view once the reply was submitted by the petitioner on 01.10.2024 which was forwarded to the enquiry officer on 04.10.2024 the enquiry officer was duty bound to write a letter to the petitioner informing the date, time and place of the oral enquiry and then if the petitioner had refused, it could be claimed that petitioner did not want to be examined or cross-examine any departmental witnesses.Even otherwise if the petitioner had refused as his letter dated 01.10.2024 has come to be interpreted in the reminder show cause notice Rule 7(X) required the enquiry officer to record the statement of departmental witnesses.
9. The bullet fast manner in which the enquiry report has been submitted, it clearly demonstrates that the enquiry officer had a pre-determined and prejudiced mind to bring home the charge. I have already held above that the procedure adopted by the enquiry officer was a flawed one and, hence, all consequential action based upon the same would be liable to be held as flawed one and deserve to be quashed. The show cause notice being based upon the findings returned by the enquiry officer in its enquiry report and so also the opinion furnished by the Public Service Commission of the proposed action, the opinion of the Public Service Commission and the consequential order passed by the State Government also deserve to be quashed. However, the Court is conscious of the Constitutional Bench Judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Managing Director ECIL, Hydrabad etc etc v. B. Karunakar etc AIR 1994 SC 1074 and, hence, permit respondent State Government to initiate enquiry afresh from the stage of reply submitted by the petitioner to the charge sheet on 01.10.2024. If it so decides, the status of the petitioner as was on the date of issuance of charge sheet shall remain the same.
10. If the petitioner was under suspension he shall be paid subsistence allowance for the entire period till date and until final action is taken after holding enquiry afresh as directed hereinabove.
11. It is expected that in the event respondents decides to hold the enquiry afresh they will be concluding the entire proceedings within a maximum period of three months from production of certified copy of this order and the petitioner would be cooperating with the same.
12. In the circumstances the order impugned dated 29.04.2025 passed by the State Government and the opinion of the Public Service Commission approving the proposed action under the order impugned are hereby quashed.
13. Original records are returned to the learned Standing Counsel.
14. The writ petition stands allowed as above.
Order Date :- 29.5.2025
Nadeem
