BHAYJUBHAI ZALUBHAI GAMIT Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner joined services of the respondent-State on 25th November, 1986 as a Class-II officer, after having been selected through the Gujarat Public Service Commission, as a District Statistical Officer. He was given additional charge of the office of Social Welfare Department between 16th May, 1987 and 17th December, 1987. During this period, Department of Food & Civil Supplies called for five names of unemployed educated persons for being recruited in the office of Gujarat Food & Civil Supplies Department. The petitioner, therefore, sent five names from the register of unemployed-persons. In that list of five names, included the name of the petitioner's wife. On 24th January 1995, a charge-sheet came to be served upon the petitioner where the allegation against the petitioner is that he, ignoring the sequence of entries made in the register, sent the name of his wife out of turn and thereby, committed misconduct. The second charge against him was that he sent name of his wife and thereby violated certain norms of conduct.

(2.) The petitioner gave reply that because he was new in the office; he was not aware of the procedure and that there was no ill-intention behind it. That, he has not drawn any benefit out of the said transaction; that he was trying to protect the constitutional right of his wife of being considered for employment, and thereafter, after the inquiry, he was held to be guilty of misconduct and came to be punished by reduction to the lowest pay in the pay-scale ie., Rs.6500/= with future effect for the period of five years. The said order was served on him on 6th June, 1998. the petitioner, therefore, approached this Court with this petition making following prayer :-

(3.) Learned AGP has opposed this petition. According to him, the petitioner was absorbed in service as a Class-II Officer and if he was unaware of the rules, he should have called for the details/rules before sending the names. Further, while sending the names, certain names have been ignored who figured prior to the name of the persons whose names have been sent. The sequence, therefore, is no maintained and persons senior to the petitioner's wife in the register have been ignored or excluded. It was also contended that the petitioner ought to have refrained to send name of his wife as per the accepted standard of conduct of a public servant. It was next contended that the delay was not caused any prejudice to the petitioner, because the case against the petitioner is based mainly on the documents and it is only when the misconduct came to the knowledge of the respondent-authority, that the respondent authority would start acting on it. In the instance case, it was only for the first time in the year 1990 that a complaint was made by someone which ultimately resulted into initiation of proceedings and punishment to the petitioner.