SAYED ARSHAD ALI NAQVI Vs. STATE AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner has assailed charge-sheet under Rule 16 of Rajasthan Civil Services (Classification, Control & Appeal) Rules, 1958 ("CCA Rules") issued on 31/12/08 the date of his retirement, praying for quashing the same on two fold grounds (1) of it being issued after an inordinate & unexplained delay of 15 years for an incident of the year 1988-93 and (2) that for the alleged act imputed of lack of monitoring construction work undertaken by department of Irrigation, he cannot be held responsible and guilty of alleged misconduct while performing his official duties on the post of Fisheries Development Officer Sawai Madhopur and due to pendency of inquiry proceedings, his retrial dues were withheld by respondents. Hence at joint request, matter was finally heard at admission stage.

(2.) As alleged, petitioner was initially appointed as Assistant Fisheries Development Officer on 07/07/1975 and after being promoted as Fisheries Development Officer, was posted at Sawai Madhopur in October, 1988 and continued to hold the post till September, 1993. It has come on record that before his posting at Sawai Madhopur in October, 1988, selection of site, counter mapping & design for construction of the Chinese hatchery at Mansarovar Dam, Sawai Madhopur besides lay out plan thereof were prepared and approved by higher authorities inasmuch as construction of hatchery also started and out of financial sanction of budget, Rs. 4.88 lacs by that time utilised for construction of hatchery till August, 1988 during the posting of his predecessor, Shri JD Sharma as is evident from letter dt.29/06/88 (Ann.1) & Note appended as Schedule A to writ petition; and after having taken over the charge in October 1988, petitioner was not satisfied with construction work in question; as such he wrote several letters (Ann.1 to 8) to higher authorities pointing out nature of construction having been undertaken by Department of Irrigation and the difficulties which the Fisheries department would face in future, as is evident from inspection report prepared in this regard by petitioner and Deputy Director (Fisheries) having been sent way back on 22/01/91 (Ann.5) but the fact remains that none of the higher authorities had ever responded to his communication, and all remained unheeded.

(3.) It appears from the record that public grievance committee for the first time in its report of year 2002-03 received by Fisheries Department on 30/07/03 observed that the action be taken against an erring officer for poor & faulty construction of hatchery at Mansarovar Dam, Sawai Madhopur. However, after about 13 years of his inspection report dt. 22/01/91 (Ann.5) followed by reminders (Ann.5 to 8), petitioner was served with a notice dt. 29/05/06 (Ann.9) to show cause & to explain about his lack of monitoring over construction work of hatchery in question, against which, he submitted his explanation on 04/07/06 (Ann.10) on which nothing was ever communicated to him.