The petitioner has approached this Court against charge-sheet dated 9.8.2011 and has prayed that the said charge-sheet and the departmental proceedings initiated against the petitioner may be set aside.
2. Mr.
Joshi, learned advocate for the petitioner, has made serious grievance as regards the manner in which the proceedings are being conducted and the petitioner is being harassed. He submitted that besides issuing notice for stale cause, even the documents on which the department is relying and the documents on account of which the charge is levelled against the petitioner, are also not made available to the petitioner. He submitted that though the petitioner has repeatedly demanded the documents in light of which the charge has been framed and the department intends to rely on, however, the said documents have not been made available. Instead, the Inquiry Officer, who is otherwise not supposed to participate in such type of process, has forwarded an intimation dated 23.3.2012 to the petitioner. Mr. Joshi essentially relied on the said communication and submitted that the Inquiry Officer has already gone out side limits and the Investigating Officer is acting on behalf of the prosecution/presenting officer.
3. All such allegations are available to the petitioner in defence at the time of proceedings before the Inquiry Officer.
Furthermore, almost 8 months have passed since the charge-sheet was issued, the Court is not inclined to entertain the petition at this stage, on the said limited ground.
So far as the grievance made by the petitioner about the conduct of the respondent authority of not supplying the documents is concerned, it appears that the petitioner is justified to the same extent.
4. In that view of the matter, instead of issuing notice and inviting the respondent authorities to appear in present proceedings, it is considered appropriate to dispose present petition with below mentioned observations:-
4.1 If the petitioner has made any application demanding documents or if the petitioner hereinafter makes an application demanding any documents on which reliance is placed by the respondent company or on which the respondent company intends to rely in support of the charge levelled against the petitioner or if the documents are such on the basis of which the charge is framed, then, the Competent Authority shall consider the said application and pass appropriate orders directing the respondent company to supply said relevant documents to the petitioner.
4.2 If the respondents are, in any way, aggrieved by the aforesaid observation, it would be open to the respondents to make appropriate application for modification of the order.
4.3 It is clarified that since the petition is disposed of in view of the aforesaid limited ground, the contentions raised by the petitioner with regard to conduct of the Inquiry Officer and/or departmental proceedings are not examined on merits, at this stage, and all the contentions are kept open.
With the aforesaid observations, clarification and direction, present petition stands disposed of.
(K.M.Thaker, J.) kdc Top