K. VENKATESWARA RAO Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present Writ Petition is filed for the following relief:-

(2.) The case of the petitioner, in brief, is that he is a Post Graduate and he studied specialized courses in the field of visually challenged and he is 100% visually challenged person and he has been working as Trained Graduate Teacher (TGT) in Government residential school since 1991. It is the further case of the petitioner that the respondent No. 2 issued a charge memo dtd. 23/8/2014 against the petitioner leveling three (03) articles of charge for which he has submitted an explanation denying the charges and pursuant to the charge memo, an Enquiry Officer was appointed and he conducted an enquiry and submitted a report dtd. 20/3/2015. The further case is that when the petitioner was working in Government residential school for visually handicapped at Ananthapur, the respondent No. 2 issued a digitally signed Memo dtd. 17/9/2020 proposing to impose punishment of stoppage of five (05) increments with cumulative effect and called for an explanation within a week from the date of receipt of the said memo and in the said memo, the enquiry report dtd. 20/3/2015 was referred to and after receiving the said memo, the petitioner submitted a representation dtd. 21/9/2020 through proper channel to the respondent No. 2 and requested to serve copy of the enquiry report to submit his explanation and in response thereof, the said report was furnished to the petitioner on 24/9/2020 and thereafter, the petitioner made a representation to respondent No. 2 through proper channel on 25/9/2020 requesting to grant three (03) weeks time to submit explanation, as he was suffering from viral fever and in response thereto, the officials addressed a letter to the petitioner dtd. 8/10/2020 granting three (03) weeks time from 25/9/2020. It is the further case of the petitioner that he made another representation dtd. 14/10/2020 to the respondent No. 2 through proper channel requesting to grant further three (03) weeks time to submit explanation, however, instead of granting time, the respondent No. 2 passed digitally signed order dtd. 19/10/2020, which is impugned in the present Writ Petition.

(3.) Heard Sri Posani Venkateswarlu, learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner and learned Assistant Government Pleader for Services-II for the respondents.