- (1.) Heard Sri Ram Asrey Yadav, learned counsel for the petitioner and Dr. Amar Nath Singh, learned Standing Counsel appearing on behalf of all the respondents.
(2.) Pursuant to the order of this Court dated 3rd December, 2019, Arun Atri, the then District Panchayat Raj Officer, Shamli (now Additional District Panchayat Raj Officer), Shamli has appeared before the Court. He has produced before the Court record of the inquiry proceedings on the basis of which the impugned order dated 28.09.2018 has been passed. By the said order, the petitioner's services have been terminated.
(3.) The facts giving rise to this petition are that the petitioner was placed under suspension pending inquiry by the respondents. The petitioner is a Class IV employee (Safaikarmi). Post suspension and formal initiation of departmental proceedings, a notice dated 24.03.2017 was served upon him and a final opportunity was given to the petitioner to submit his reply to the allegations that were there against him. The petitioner submitted his reply to this notice on 31st March, 2017. The order of punishment records that this reply was not found satisfactory. However, instead of proceeding to conduct an inquiry, the Inquiry Officer within the next three days proceeded to submit an inquiry report on 3rd April, 2017 which formed basis of the order of termination that was earlier passed against the petitioner on 10.04.2017. The said order was challenged before this Court in Writ-A No. 35939 of 2017. The ground of challenge, amongst others, appears to be that there is absolutely no consideration of the petitioner's case in the order impugned and even if the explanation submitted by the petitioner was not accepted, the Inquiry Officer was obliged to proceed in the manner that a date for holding the inquiry had to be fixed. Thereafter, opportunity of producing evidence etc. ought to have been afforded, but no such procedure has been followed.;