JAI NARAIN VERMA Vs. DELHI DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is an employee of Delhi Development Authority (In short. the 'DDA'). At the relevant time, the petitioner was a lower division clerk. A charge sheet dated 7th April 1973 was served on the petitioner The statement of imputation pertain to incidents of 1969 and 1970. The allegations against the petitioner, in terms of the statement of imputation on the basis of which article of charge has been framed, are these : "Allegation Shri Jai Narain was functioning as Rent Collector, J. J. Scheme, Najafgarh Road, DDA in the year 1969-70. The duty of Shri Jai Narain was only to collect rent or lease money from the allottees. The plot were allotted by the Executive Officer of the J. J. Scheme and the said Shri Jai Narain was not authorised to give possession of plots under the above scheme without competent authority. The said Shri Jai Narain collected money and issued the following receipts :

(2.) Since the enquiry did not make any head way, the petitioner filed this petition in February 1994, inter alia, seeking quashing of the charge-sheet and consequent departmental proceedings on the main "round of undue and inordinate delay in conclusion of the departmental proceedings.

(3.) It also seems dear from the counter affidavit filed on behalf of the DDA that there has been undue and. inordinate delay in the conclusion of the departmental enauiry for no fault of the petitioner. No satisfactory explanation is coming forth on record for this delay. The incident pertains to the year 1969-70. Charges were served on the petitioner about 22 years ago. Except for change of enquiry officers and presenting officers nothing tangible has happened in the proceedings of the enquiry. As many as 8 enquiry officers a.nd 6 preseting officers have been changed. According to the DDA it was. on account of administrative reasons. For the present purposes we will accept that explanation. But, the fact remains that in all these years even the documents have not been supplied to the petitioner. The counter affidavit of DDA show that only 5 out of 14 documents have been supplied to' the petitioner. Regarding the supply of the remaining documents, the plea of the DDA is that endenvoius for collecting the same are going on. What endeavours have been made in lust about 20 years have not been stated in the counter affidavit. The recording of evidence has not commenced. Further, it seems that the allegations against the petitioner were connected with the allegations against one Randhir Singh, Rent Collector, who was convicted by orders of Special Judge. The appeal of Randhir Singh was dismissed by the High Court. The Special Leave Petition is stated to be pending in the Supreme Court. in case the original documents had been filed in Court in case against Randhir Singh, it was expected of DDA to take appropriate steps to obtain certified copies of documents from the Court and supply the same to the petitioner. The DDA did not adopt that course with the result that the disciplinary proceedings, without any progress, are pending for about 22 years ago. The question is can the charge sheet and the disciplinary proceedings, under these circumstances, be quashed.