N SETHUMADHAVAN Vs. ASSISTANT EXECUTIVE ENGINEER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has suffered an order of punishment of stoppage of two increments with cumulative effect by an order dated 16.4.2003. Aggrieved against that the petitioner has filed an appeal before the Appellate Authority and the same was also taken by the Additional Chief Engineer. The Additional Chief Engineer without considering any of the points raised by the petitioner in the appeal and without even assigning any single reason, has rejected the appeal of the petitioner. Therefore, questioning the order of the Additional Chief Engineer, the present writ petition has been filed.

(2.) It is the submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner, though after the report of the Enquiry Officer was submitted, the petitioner received second show cause notice to submit his explanation and even after submitting his second explanation on 3.3.2003, which was received by the respondent department on 5.3.2003 and was registered in the current register against No. 074 on 3.3.2003 in Register No. 341 dated 5.3.2003, which indicates clearly that the second explanation submitted by the petitioner has also not been properly considered and without considering the second explanation, the Appellate Authority has passed the impugned order slapping the stoppage of two increments with cumulative effect. The case of the petitioner is that the order passed by the Appellate Authority is unreasonable and therefore the same has to be set aside.

(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the appeal was filed only with a limited prayer to remand the matter back to the Original Authority, to consider the petitioner's explanation and pass appropriate orders by recalling the punishment of stoppage of two increments with cumulative affect and the request for remand was rejected. However, learned counsel for the respondents submits that the impugned order does not call for any interference and prayed for dismissal of the present writ petition.