- (1.) S. P. Mishra, appellant in the appeal herein has unfortunately expired during the pendency of the appeal. His widow has been substituted as the appellant.
(2.) S. P. Mishra was a member of the Higher Judicial Service in the State of uttar Pradesh. As a result of disciplinary proceedings he was dismissed from service on the recommendation of the High court by the order dated 4/2/1978. Mishra challenged the order of dismissal by way of a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India before the Allahabad High court. A Division bench of the High court upheld the order of dismissal.
(3.) Learned counsel for the appellant has raised only one contention before us. According to him the order of dismissal is vitiated on the short ground that the copies of the depositions of the witnesses were not made available to the judges of the High court at the time, when they were considering the inquiry report. We see no force in the contention of the learned counsel. The inquiring authority submitted a detailed report running into 120 pages. The gist of thedepositions, made before the Enquiry Officer, was incorporated in the enquiry report. The High court in the impugned judgment observed as under : "The report was circulated to all the Hon'ble Judges of this court. No hon'ble Judge of this court desired or wished that the evidence recorded by the tribunal or the entire record of the case should be summoned from the tribunal and placed before him for his perusal. The matter was placed before the Hon'ble Judges of this court at a meeting. The Hon'ble Judges agreed with the findings of the tribunal and the court resolved that the petitioner should be dismissed from service. It is not in dispute that neither the copies of the depositions of the witnesses examined by the tribunal nor the record of the tribunal were before the Hon'ble Judges of this court when they considered the report of the tribunal. The report was a detailed and voluminous one. It ran into 120 pages. It contained charges framed against the petitioner and the findings given by the tribunal on each of the charge. The tribunal took pains to analyses the oral and documentary evidence before it. It dealt with each of the charges in detail in the light of the evidence before it. ";