GOVIND SHANKAR Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this application under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution the petitioner, who was formerly an Inspector of Police, prays for the issue of a writ of certiorari for quashing an order dated 1st October 1960, of the Inspector-General of Police dismissing him from service.

(2.) IN 1959-60 a departmental enquiry was held against the petitioner in the following circumstances as stated by the department. On 15th Feburary 1958, 1130 tolas of ganja in two packets of the value of Rs. 2,150/- was seized by the Seoni police in connection with a criminal case. Whan the petitioner, who was Station Officer, Seoni, solicited orders of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Seoni, regarding destruction of the ganja which was no longer required for any purpose, the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Seoni, Shri khanna, addressed a memorandum to the Station Officer, Seoni, on 8th November 1958 to send the ganja to him for destruction. When the Sub-Divisional magistrate, Seoni, did not receive the ganja, he reported the matter to the District superintendent of Police, Seoni. In reply to queries made by the District superintendent of Police the petitioner informed him that the memorandum which he had received from the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Seoni, directed him to destroy the ganja and accordingly he had burnt it In the presence of the Circle Inspector and two respectable gentlemen of the town; and that thereafter he also informed the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Seoni, about the disposal of the ganja in this manner. The Sub-Divisional Magistrate, however, felt some doubt about the destruction of the ganja by the petitioner and he, therefore, requested the District superintendent of Police to make further enquiry. During the course of the enquiry the department learnt that the memorandum sent by the Sub-Divisional magistrate on 8th November 1958 actually directed the petitioner to send the ganja to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate for destruction; that the ganja had been sold off and not destroyed; that the police station register of incoming correspondence had been interpolated so as to show that the memorandum received from the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, concerned the destruction of the ganja and the making of a report about it; that the entry in the register was interpolated by constable Balram Singh at the instance of the petitioner and that the ganja packets were neither weighed nor shown to any person before its alleged burning.

(3.) ON this information a departmental enquiry was held against the applicant on the following charges :