ZILEH SINGH SAGAR Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, a Deputy Inspector General of Central Industrial Security Force (for short C.I.S.F), aggrieved by the initiation of departmental proceeding by Memorandum dated 13th January 2006, has preferred this writ petition praying for quashing the entire departmental proceeding including the charge sheet on the ground of bias and malafide and the same being wholly unfounded and uncalled for.

(2.) THE grievance of the petitioner is that he has been malicouously implicated in the departmental proceedings by Shri H.V. Chaturvedi, I.G.NES -the respondent No. 6 who has been promoted to the rank of Inspector General of Police by superceding the petitioner and his promotion is subject to final result of the writ petition filed by the petitioner now pending in the Calcutta High Court, being W.P No. 1504/03 (admitted by the respondent in Para 40 of C.A). Actuated by the said malice and bias, the petitioner has been falsely roped in a departmental proceeding on frivolous charges framed on the basis of report of the preliminary enquiry submitted by the respondent No. 6. It has been stated that the impugned Memorandum of charge contains three articles of charges against the petitioner which are related to an incident which took place in Durgapur Steel Plant on 10.6.05, while the petitioner was posted as the Deputy Inspector General of Police, C.I.S.F, Unit Durgapur Steel Plant. The incident was a reported theft of Nut Coke by Dumper No. WB -39/1939. According to the petitioner when he received the information about the said occurrence at about 1800 Hrs., he immediately directed the Commandant Mr. K.K. Singh to come in action and apprehend the said Dumper. According to the petitioner, the Commandant took immediate steps and apprehended the empty dumper and brought the same with the driver to the C.I.S.F Complex Bhiringi. The General Manager (Services) of Durgapur Steel Plant was immediately informed about the seizure of the Dumper, who on getting information came to the C.I.S.F Complex with two other officials. In the mean time, the local police had also arrived and the driver was interrogated in their presence. The officials of Durgapur Steel Plant, Mr. T.K. Sarkar, Assistant General Manager (Raw Materials) and Mr. A. Ghosh, Manager (Raw Materials) thereafter submitted a written complaint to the petitioner. On the said complaint, the petitioner gave a written instruction to the Commandant to hand over the Dumper and driver to the local police. At about 2015 Hrs. on 10.6.05, the Commandant informed the Faridpur Police Station, Durgapur about the same. An F.I.R was then drawn up by the local police on the basis of a written report of the officials of Durgapur Steel Plant being F.I.R No. 171 of 05 and case was registered under Sections 379/409 and 120B of the I.P.C.

(3.) IT has been further stated that while the preliminary enquiry conducted by Mr. P.K. Basu, Assistant Commandant, was in process, the respondent No. 6, who had personal bias against the petitioner, deliberately started another preliminary enquiry regarding the said incident behind the back of the petitioner. The same was intended to implicate the petitioner in a departmental proceeding in order to create another impediment in his due promotion. The said respondent No. 6 submitted a report alleging supervisory failure on the part of the petitioner. On the said basis the impugned memorandum of charges dated 13.1.06 containing three articles of charges was served on the petitioner initiating major penalty proceeding under Rule 14 of the Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965. The Articles of charges are as follows: