SHEO SHANKAR THAKUR Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has challenged the validity of the orders, contained in Annexures 9, 11 and 12 of the writ application. The Superintendent of Police, Singhbhum at Chaibasa passed an order dated 24-3-1981 (Annexure 9) withholding his increments for two years and debarring him from being posted to a police station for a period of five years. He further directed that the period of suspension i. e., from 17-7-1976 to 29-12-1978 shall be treated as extraordinary leave without pay. Aggrieved by the said order, an appeal was preferred before the Deputy Inspector General of Police, South Chotanagpur Range, Ranchi but the same was dismissed (Annexure 11). The revision application before the Inspector General of Police also remained unsuccessful.

(2.) The main grievance of the petitioner is that he was not given sufficient opportunity to cross-examine the two relevant witnesses, namely, Pamia Hansdain and Kande Hansda. The petitioner had filed and application (Annexure 5) before the Superintendent of Police, Singhbhum on 28-2-1978 and he categorically urged that the conducting officer had called these two witnesses at his own residence on 11-2-1978 and examined them behind his dack without giving any notice to the petitioner. After recording their statement, the petitioner was later called on telephone to arrive at the residence of the conducting officer. He reached at 4.30 P.M. in the evening and found that these witneses were sitting there. He was asked by the conducting officer to cross-examine them and that if he does not cross-examine them, the enquiry will proceed ex-parte. The petitioner urged that he was not in a position to cross-examine them since none of the papers were supplied to him including the statement of those witnesses recorded by the conducting officer. He further submitted that since those two witnesses were examined behind his back, she had no knowledge of their statement recorded by the conducting officer and the contents of those statements were never disclosed to him. He was, thus, not given any reasonable opportunity of cross-examining them. In the enquiry report it is recorded that those two witnesses returned back without being cross- examined. It is nowhere recorded in the enquiry report that opportunity to cross- examine those two witnesses were ever afforded to the petitioner and then he refused to cross-examine them. The same position was reiterated by the petitioner in his memorandom of appeal filed before the Deputy Inspector General of Police and it was specifically urged that the petitioner was denied the opportunity of cross-examining those two important witnesses who were examined behind his back without prior information. From the order contained in Annexure 11 passed by the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Ranchi, this plea of the petitioner has been rejected on mere inference that the petitioner refused to cross-examine them.

(3.) The circumstances under which the petitioner was asked to cross-examine those two witnesses is fully elicited in his petition filed before the Superintendent of Police on 28-2-1978, the details of which have already been mentioned above.