HARCHARAN SINGH Vs. DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION AND ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner vide the present petition seeks quashing of the impugned order dated 30.10.2012 of Delhi School Tribunal in Appeal No. 78/2012. Consequently, quashing the impugned order dated 20.10.2010 passed by the Disciplinary Committee.

(2.) The case of the petitioner is that he joined respondent School as Fee Clerk and thereafter promoted up to UDC and at the relevant time he was working as Head Clerk. On 9.10.2009 the School Authority informed the petitioner that they had received a complaint dated 5.10.2009 from one Vinay Kumar Yadav, another employee of respondent School that the petitioner had sent some SMS by computer through Vinay Kumar Yadav's mobile to Smt. Bimla Devi employee of respondent School. Accordingly, issued show cause notice to the petitioner on 9.10.2009. The petitioner replied on 9.10.2009 and denied the allegations. Thereafter, the respondent issued show cause notice and the same was replied by the petitioner vide his reply dated 11.10.2009. Vide order dated 14.01.2009 the respondent suspended the service of the petitioner and initiated disciplinary proceedings. The petitioner being aggrieved, filed an appeal No. 65/2009 u/s 8(4) r/w Section 11 of Delhi School Education Act, 1973. Thereafter, the school authority issued another letter on 22.10.2009 and called the petitioner to appear in person before the Sexual Harassment Committee of the school. The petitioner replied to the letter dated 22.10.2009 and denied the allegations. The charge sheet in the form of Memorandum was issued to the petitioner on 13.01.2010 by the Disciplinary Committee of the respondent school. On 17.02.2010 the petitioner wrote a letter to Mr. Inder Singh, Member of Disciplinary Committee and Ex Chairman of Guru Nanak Public School mentioning the aforesaid facts and requested to provide the following documents:

(3.) On 26.04.2010 the Chairman of the respondent School appointed Mr.M.P. Chowdhary as the Presenting Officer and Shri S.S. Sharma as the Inquiry Officer to proceed against the petitioner. Vide notice dated 27.04.2010 the respondent no.3 directed the petitioner to appear before him on 05.05.2010 at 2.30 pm. Accordingly, the petitioner appeared and requested that he be supplied with the relevant documents sought in letter dated 17.02.2010. However, vide order sheet no. 1 dated 05.5.2010, the Inquiry Officer furnished the details of the proceedings but did not pay any heed to the request of the petitioner for supply of the documents mentioned in the letter dated 17.02.2010. The Inquiry Officer again directed the petitioner to appear before him on 13.05.2010. On the said date, the petitioner again requested to supply the documents mentioned in the letter dated 17.02.2010 and thereafter reiterated the same by giving another letter on 13.05.2010 to the respondent no.3. Vide daily order sheet dated 13.05.2010, the Inquiry Officer directed the Presenting Officer to supply the documents as asked by the petitioner before the next date of hearing i.e. 18.05.2010. Out of all the documents as requested by the petitioner in letter dated 17.02.2010, only one i.e. the copy of the print outs of SMS were provided to the petitioner. Neither the voice recorded statement provided nor any attempt was made to seal the hard disc of Ms.Harvinder Kaur's computer which was the most important evidence in the present matter. The copies of SMS on the basis of which allegations were levelled against the petitioner, thus were provided for the first time during the proceedings on 18.05.2010. Vide letter dated 21.05.2010 the petitioner wrote a letter to the Inquiry Officer, by stating that none of the relevant documents were supplied and instead five pages of fabricated computer print outs were given to him.