B.D. GUPTA Vs. THE STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS writ petition is directed against two orders of the same date 27th February, 1967, annexures A -17 and A -18 filed with the writ petition, whereby the Governor of Haryana ordered that the penalty of censure be imposed on the Petitioner and that he was not to be allowed to get anything more than what had already been paid to him as his subsistence allowance during the period of his suspension from 31st May, 1963 to 6th January, 1966. The period of suspension was to be treated as a period spent on duty for all other purposes.

(2.) THE Petitioner is the Executive Engineer, P.W.D. (Irrigation Branch) allocated to the State of Haryana. He joined the Punjab Irrigation Department as temporary Engineer on 4th July, 1939 and was later promoted as an officiating Executive Engineer on 2nd May, 1952. There was one Shri K. R. Sharma, Superintending Engineer, working in Narwana Circle, and the Petitioner was posted as his Personal Assistant on 8th October, 1953. A case was registered on 4th July, 1954 under Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act against the said Shri K. R. Sharma, who has since died, Shri Sat Dev Khanna, Sub -Divisional Officer, and some other officers. The Petitioner was also an accused person in that case, arrested on 30th December, 1954 and suspended from that date. He had, of course, been released on bail. He was still on bail when the Government started departmental proceedings against him. An enquiry was started somewhere in November, 1956 and a charge -sheet was given to the Petitioner under Rule 7.2 of the Punjab Civil ' Services (Punishment and Appeal) Rules, 1952, hereinafter called the Disciplinary Rules. There were two charges against him, which may be described as charge No. 1(a) and charge No. 1(b). Charge No. 1(a) related to an alleged demand having been made by the Petitioner for illegal gratification from some contractors in order to show them undue favour and that he actually accepted the gratification on 17th January, 1954, when he inspected the Tangri Bund. The amount alleged to have been taken by him was about Rs. 2,000. The other charge No. 1(b), which alone is relevant for this case, was that the Petitioner on being deputed by the Superintending Engineer inspected Saraswati Feeder on 1st October, 1953 and demanded illegal gratification from contractors at the rate of Rs. 500 per Burji for getting sanctioned for them a higher rate of earthwork which caused loss to the Government to the tune of Rs. 32,000. The Petitioner, it was alleged, actually accepted a sum of Rs. 9,000 from the contractors whose names had been mentioned in the charge -sheet.

(3.) SHRI Rattan Singh Guleria was appointed as an Enquiry Officer sometime in October, 1957 and on 18th February, 1558 the Petitioner was reverted from the post of the officiating Executive Engineer to a temporary Engineer. He challenged this order in a civil suit where his claim was decreed and I am told by the learned Counsel for the Petitioner that the appeal is pending in the High Court and that it is not necessary for the purposes of the present writ petition to make any reference to the pleadings in that case. The Enquiry Officer Shri Guleria recorded prosecution evidence with regard to charge No. 1(a) and about sixteen witnesses were examined with regard to charge No. 1(b), but the remaining enquiry with regard to the latter charge was deferred. Shri Guleria submitted his report only with regard to charge No. 1(a) and the case of the Petitioner is that he was exonerated of this charge by the Enquiry Officer.