H.C.P.Tripathi, J. - (1.) Petitioner was employed as Sub-Post Master in district Saharanpur in 1948. in 1950 he was working as officiating Reserve Clerk and had joined as such at Saharanpur Head Post Office. He was prosecuted for having committed embezzlement of certain money orders and was sentenced to two years' R. I. by the trial Magistrate. Petitioner's appeal against his conviction and sentence was, however, allowed by the learned Sessions Judge on 3-4-1958. Accordingly he was reinstated in service. Subsequently he was suspended and a charge-sheet dated 2-1-1960 was issued to him. Petitioner submitted his explanation to the charges levelled against him and thereafter one Sri Autar Singh, the then Post Master, Saharanpur held an enquiry under R. 15 of the Central Civil Services Rules,- 1957 in respect of the charges levelled against the petitioner. He made a report holding that some of the charges, including the charge of embezzlement of certain amounts on account of money orders, have been established against the petitioner. The Superintendent of.Post Offices thereafter issued a second notice to the petitioner to show cause as to why he should not be dismissed. Taking into account the cause shown by the petitioner the Senior Superintendent of Post Offices, Saharanpur Division, passed the impugned order dismissing the petitioner from service with effect from 13th November, 1963.
(2.) Petitioner addressed an appeal dated 2-1-1964 to the Director of Postal Services, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow through the Superintendent of Post Offices Saharanpur against his order of dismissal challenging its validity on various grounds and praying for the setting aside of the dismissal order. (Annexures Q1 and Q2 to the Supplementary affidavit). The Superintendent of Post Offices, however, instead of forwarding the appeal to the proper authority returned it under R. 23 of the Rules with the remark that "the appeal is not complete in itself". This writ petition is directed against the aforesaid order of the dismissal and the return of his appeal passed by the Senior Superintendent of Post Offices, Saharanpur.
(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioner has challenged the validity of the impugned order of dismissal on several grounds. It is urged that the petitioner was not given a fair opportunity to defend himself, inasmuch as,his request for being represented by a lawyer or by one Shanti Swarup Sharma or Sri Umesh Chand, both of whom were Government employees, was unceremoniously rejected by the Enquiry Officer and the petitioner's further request to inspect some of the documents relied upon by the Department was not acceded to and no handwriting expert was examined to enable the petitioner to prove his case that his alleged confession which had been relied upon for holding the charge of embezzlement established did not bear his signature. It has been urged that the Superintendent of Post Offices was not justified in law in withholding the petitioner's appeal.;