Court No. - 39
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 16088 of 2018 Petitioner :- Puran Lal Respondent :- General Manager (Disciplinary Authority ) And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Gopal Verma,Prashant Vardhan Counsel for Respondent :- Satish Kishore Kakkar
Hon'ble B. Amit Sthalekar,J. Hon'ble Jayant Banerji,J.
Heard Sri Prasant Vardhan, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Satish Kishore Kakkar, learned counsel appearing for respondent no.1 and 4.
This petition has been filed by the petitioner with the prayer to direct the respondents to change the Enquiry Officer and Presenting Officer in the departmental proceedings pending against the petitioner. According to the petitioner, in this regard he has preferred a representation dated 30.6.2018 before the Disciplinary Authority Annexure-15 to the writ petition by registered post on 2.7.2018.
We have gone through the contents of the petitioner's representation. There is not a single allegation against the Enquiry Officer or the Presenting Officer. There are only allegations of apprehension of harassment but no specific allegation has been mentioned which would convince us that the petitioner will be harassed by the Enquiry Officer. At one place, it has been mentioned in the representation that on 25.4.2018 the petitioner was ill and on that date the Enquiry Officer fixed 15.5.2018 ignoring the fact that the petitioner was ill but in the same allegation, it has been mentioned that no fitness certificate was submitted by the petitioner. This can hardly be a ground for alleging bias against the Enquiry Officer. There is no allegation against the Presenting Officer also.
From perusal of the representation, it is revealed that Para 3.3 of Chapter XIV of the Vigilance Manual has been quoted in the petitioner's representation, which provides that the Disciplinary Authority may in exceptional circumstances change the Enquiry Officer. In the present case, no exceptional circumstances have been disclosed by the petitioner for change of the Enquiry Officer.
For reasons aforesaid, we find no ground to interfere in the writ petition.
The writ petition lacks merits and is accordingly, dismissed.
Order Date :- 27.7.2018 sfa/