NIRANJANI DEVI Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner was a Science Mistress in a school run by the Education Department, Punjab. She remained absent from duty from 1st January, 1988 to 30th June, 1998 which was a rather long stint of no work. She was removed from service on 16th September, 2002 after holding an ex parte inquiry. She filed a suit, which succeeded on the short ground that she was not given an opportunity of being heard and therefore the removal order was held to be illegal and the defendants were directed to re -conduct the inquiry by associating the petitioner and in case the inquiry went in her favour then she should be reinstated and be entitled to service benefits from the due date. The department filed an appeal against the decree while the employee filed an execution application in the civil court. The State appeal was dismissed in the year 2011. The judgment and decree of the trial Court was affirmed. The order attained finality. In implementation of the order the department appointed an Inquiry Officer in November, 2011 to go into the misconduct of willful absence without leave. Petitioner failed to produce the leave applications claimed by her to explain her absence which she says she made from time to time that she was not in possession of copies thereof. When asked about the mode of transmission, she stated that she sent them through school teachers, through ordinary post and over the telephone. The report was submitted on 5th November, 2013. The charge was proven that she remained willfully absent from 1st May, 1988 to 14th March, 1996/98. The school had repeatedly written to her to join, lastly on 15th March, 1996. The inquiry report was forwarded to the petitioner to know her version. She was given an opportunity of personal hearing on 30th December, 2013. It was her case she had to leave on account of her mother -in -law's illness and her social obligations. These were lame excuses.

(2.) Nevertheless, the disciplinary authority found from the inquiry report that the department had produced no witness to prove that she remained absent without leave. And nor was she called at the time of recording statements of prosecution witnesses produced by the department so that she had opportunity cross examine them. The disciplinary authority heard both the petitioner and the Inquiry Officer and directed the latter to remove the flaw and re -submit his inquiry report after following due procedure on which the petitioner expressed her satisfaction after concluding her arguments in her defense against the ex parte enquiry. The result remained the same after holding fresh enquiry on remand. The charge of misconduct of long absence without leave was again proven in the presence of the petitioner for want of evidence to show sufficient cause of absence. The petitioner knew the case against her and the onus was on her to produce evidence of alleged leave applications sent to employer covering the enormous period involved; 1st May, 1988 to 14th March, 1996. It appears that during that period her mother -in -law died and to make things worse her husband turned sick. These are hardly valid reasons explaining absence.

(3.) The disciplinary authority visited the past record of unlawful absences of the petitioner from where he found a litany of absenteeism, a gist of which is tabulated in the written statement of the department of the State, see Pages 129 to 131 of the paper -book to confirm. The entries, to say the least, are enormous bridges to cross, involving days, months and more than a year, the stark one of which was for the period 1983 -84. The last and material absence is shown from 1st May, 1988 to 30th June, 1998, the period relevant to the instant dispute which by any standards is gigantic. Having regard to all the above jumble of misconducts, past and present, the Director, Education Department (Schools) Punjab, Ajitgarh vide impugned order dated 16th April, 2014 thought it fit to reject her representation for reinstatement in service.