Court No. - 36
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 12768 of 2019 Petitioner :- Rajvir Singh Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 4 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Ajay Kumar Srivastava,Samir Sharma(Senior Adv.) Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Mritunjay Mohan Sahai
Hon'ble Mrs. Sunita Agarwal,J.
Sri Sunil Kumar Mishra learned counsel has put in appearance on behalf of respondent-U.P.S.R.T.C.
The present petition is directed against the charge sheet dated 02.07.2019 wherein one of the charges levelled against the petitioner are that he had obtained appointment by submitting fake driving licence, issued in the name of another person.
The submission of learned counsel for the petitioner is that a charge sheet and show cause notice were earlier served on the petitioner on the same allegation. After enquiry, the officer concerned found the allegation baseless and further reply to the show cause notice given by the petitioner was also accepted. Both the orders of the appointing authority dated 27.07.2012 and 12.10.2017 have been placed before the Court to substantiate that the allegations of fake driving licence were duly examined and turned down.
This submission of learned counsel for the petitioner is not found correct from the careful perusal of the order dated 27.04.2013 and 12.10.2017.
The specific charge in the charge sheet dated 29.08.2011 was that the petitioner had obtained appointment by submitting fake driving licence which actually was issued in the name of Ashok Kumar son of Panna Lal. The said allegation was based on a report of the Transport Officer dated 18.08.2011. A perusal of the order dated 27.04.2013 indicates that no enquiry whatsoever had been done to verify the correctness/genuineness of the averments made in the verification report, rather the Assistant Regional Manager raising doubt on the correctness of the verification report dated 18.08.2011 reached at the conclusion that the said report cannot be accepted being doubtful. Thereafter, while giving benefit of doubt to the petitioner, the allegation of submitting fake driving licence to obtain appointment was decided in his favour. In the order dated 12.10.2017, on the same allegation, it was said that the issue had already been addressed in the office order dated 27.04.2013 and, therefore, cannot be re-agitated. The show cause notice, therefore, was found bad and revoked.
Having noticed the said facts it is clear that the issue whether the driving licence of the petitioner was valid or fake has not been adverted to by the competent authority in any of the above orders. There was no reason for ignoring the verification report dated 18.08.2011 by raising doubt on its correctness without any effort to get the same verified from the concerned office. The proper course was to seek clarification from the concerned office regarding the license. The appointing authority by raising presumption with regard to the verification report being not a correct report, gave benefit of doubt to the petitioner, which was not permissible.
In the said circumstance, the decisions of the appointing authority in the previous enquiry as aforesaid, cannot be read to mean that the charges levelled in the charge sheet dated 02.07.2019 cannot be examined. It is incumbent on the competent authority to enquire into the allegation of fake driving licence used by the petitioner to obtain appointment in the Corporation.
It is open for the petitioner to make all his submissions by giving a comprehensive reply to the charge sheet. The enquiry officer would be under obligation to conclude the enquiry at the earliest, independently.
The writ petition is, accordingly, disposed of. Order Date :- 22.8.2019 Himanshu