RAJENDRA SINGH Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN & OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) INSTANT intra -court appeal has been preferred against order of the ld.Single Judge dt.05.11.2003.

(2.) THE brief facts of the case which may be relevant for the present purpose are that the appellant joined service as Lecturer on 16.11.1964 and thereafter promoted as Senior Lecturer/Head of Department/Vice Principal and thereafter promoted on the post of Joint Director of PG College on 15.02.1995 and the next higher post in hierarchy is of Director, College Education and his allegation is that he was senior most Joint Director in the Department and as the Director, College Education was going to retire he submitted an application on 22.01.1996 for his appointment and handing over charge of the post of the helm of affairs but to the dismay of appellant, he was placed under suspension on 26.01.1996 and a chargesheet was served upon him on 13.06.1996 and in all there were six allegations but basically the allegation was that certain appointments were made on the post of Lab.Assistant on 17.07.1995 deliberately ignoring the fact that two posts of Lab.Assistants were abolished w.e.f. 01.04.1995 vide order dt.11.07.1995 and further allegation is that the incumbents who were appointed as Lab.Assistants were not holding requisite qualifications prescribed under the scheme of Rules.

(3.) HOWEVER , in the regular enquiry, the Enquiry Officer did not find the charge Nos.1, 2, 5 and 6 proved and at the same time, the charge Nos.3 and 4 were found partly proved but the report of Enquiry Officer was not accepted by the Disciplinary Authority and he was served with the note of disagreement on 25.07.1997 and after the opportunity of submitting explanation afforded to the appellant, the disciplinary authority held all the charges proved against him and punished him with the penalty of reduction in pay -scale by five stages vide order dt.28.03.1998 and at the same time, the disciplinary authority also observed that the period of suspension shall not be counted while computing qualifying service and the order of penalty was served upon him on the date of his retirement and that was the subject matter of challenge by filing writ petition before the ld.Single Judge and we find from the record and the synopsis/written submission, which the counsel for appellant has placed on record, that the petitioner raised allegation of malice against the impleaded respondents No.2 and 3 and also on merits of the matter his objection was that the very initiation of departmental enquiry was per -se bad in the eye of law and the order dt.11.07.1995 by which two posts of Lab.Assistants came to be abolished w.e.f. 01.04.1995 was never received in his office and this was the basic error which the Enquiry Officer committed and the disciplinary authority also failed to consider and counsel submits that if the order dt.11.07.1995 by which two posts of Lab.Assistants came to be abolished w.e.f. 01.04.1995 by the Government was not received in the office of the appellant, the very foundation in serving the chargesheet, holding enquiry against him and recording a finding of holding him guilty is completely perverse and in addition to it, his further contention is that all these modalities were adopted only to accommodate the next incumbent in queue and to enable him to achieve his goal in getting promotion to the post of Director by placing appellant under suspension and he remained under suspension and was reinstated in service on the post of Joint Director on the last date of his service when the order of punishment came to be passed dt.31.03.1998.