Court No. - 6
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 10217 of 2020 Petitioner :- Vijay Prakash Singh Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Hritudhwaj Pratap Sahi,Samarath Singh,Sankalp Narain Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Pankaj Bhatia,J.
The present petition has been filed challenging the order dated 20.02.2020, whereby the petitioner has been reverted to the post of Junior Assistant from the post of Chief Assistant.
Counsel for the petitioner argues that the petitioner was working as Chief Assistant with the respondents and a complaint was made against the petitioner, in which an enquiry was ordered and was got conducted by the Additional Commissioner (Administration) and a preliminary enquiry report dated 15.05.2017 was submitted against the petitioner. In view of the said preliminary enquiry report, a charge sheet was served upon the petitioner on 30.06.2017. The petitioner denied the charges by filing reply on 03.07.2017. Subsequent thereto the petitioner was issued a show cause notice dated 27.08.2019 calling upon him to submit his reply, to which the petitioner claims to have submitted on 03.09.2019. It is argued that the entire enquiry was got conducted against the petitioner without complying principle of natural justice and without affording adequate opportunity to the petitioner to produce the relevant material in support of his case and witness.
After the enquiry was got conducted, the petitioner was served a show cause notice on 04.12.2019 and a copy of the enquiry report was supplied to him. It is argued that the petitioner gave a detail reply to the said show cause notice on 18.12.2019. After the said reply, no date was fixed for hearing nor was the petitioner ever called upon to submit his arguments and all of sudden the order dated 20.02.2020 was passed. It is argued that the enqiury report as well as the impugned order have been passed without affording any opportunity of hearing to the petitioner.
A perusal of the impugned order although shows that hearing was provided to the petitioner by the enquiry officer, however, there is no whisper of any date, time and place for the oral hearing granted to the petitioner prior to the passing of the said order dated 20.02.2020.
Counsel for the petitioner specifically states that the observation made in the impugned order with regard to the granting of oral hearing by the enquiry officer is wholly wrong and he has made an averment to that effect in paragraph 42 of the writ petition.
In the counter affidavit, filed by the respondents, there is no specific denial of the pleading that no opportunity of hearing was granted by the enquiry officer nor has any document been filed to dispute the petitioner's allegation that oral hearing was not granted by the enquiry officer also. In any event the perusal of the impugned order also does not show that any hearing was granted to the petitioner nor was the defence of the petitioner taken into consideration while passing the said order.
In view of what has been recorded above, it is apparent that while passing the impugned order, respondents have not complied with the provisions of Rule 7 of the U.P. Government Servant (Punishment & Appeal) Rules, 1999, which provides for manner of passing such orders.
Considering the fact that no hearing was accorded to the petitioner prior to the passing of the impugned order, the impugned order dated 20.02.2020 is set aside. The matter is remanded with a direction that proceedings shall be initiated against the petitioner and concluded in terms of the mandate of Rule 7 from the stage when charge-sheet was issued to the petitioner and reply was given to the said charge-sheet by the petitioner with all expedition, preferably within a period of four months from the date of presentation of a copy of this order.
The petition stands disposed of with the same.
Order Date :- 22.9.2021 Pkb/