Sambuddha Chakrabarti, J. - (1.) The case of the petitioner, inter alia, is that on April 6, 1988, he was appointed as an Assistant Engineer in the Kolkata Municipal Development Authority (KMDA, for short). On December 13, 2005, he was promoted to the post of Executive Engineer and was associated with the construction of 30 million gallon per day at Kalyani Water Treatment Plant. He was also discharging other duties attached to his office. With effect from July 27, 2009, he was again promoted to the post of Superintending Engineer and subsequently, with effect from December 31, 2012, he was promoted to the post of Additional Chief Engineer. From May 1, 2014, he has been acting as Chief Engineer-in-charge, Water Supply Sector. From August 27, 2014, he has also been functioning as the Chief Engineer-in-charge, Material Sector.
(2.) On June 3, 2015, the Chief Executive Officer, KMDA i.e., the respondent no. 2 issued a charge-sheet against the petitioner alleging that while serving as the Superintending Engineer from July 27, 2009 to December 30, 2012, he invited an online tender for certain purposes near Sodepur Railway Station under Panihati Municipality at an arbitrarily high rate of an estimated amount of Rs. 2,81,76,400/- and issued the work order to M/s. Protomac Construction treating the organization as the lowest bidder with tender amount of Rs. 2,79,70,421/-. That was detected by the Chief Engineer, Water Supply and a revised notice inviting tender with an estimated amount of Rs. 1.75 crores was invited in cancellation of the earlier one.
(3.) The petitioner in his reply denied the charges against him. He requested the respondent authority to supply copies of all the documents as mentioned in Annexure A-II to the said chargesheet as well as some other documents and records. It has been the allegation of the petitioner that the charges levelled against him are not on the face of them maintainable as he has no power or authority to sanction or accept any tender of a value exceeding rupees two crores. The said tender was accepted and approved by the Works and Tender Committee which consisted of four senior IAS Officers, all the DGOs and all the Chief Engineers of KMDA and KMW. The petitioner states that four IAS officers were i) Finance Secretary to the Government of West Bengal, ii) the Principal Secretary, Urban Development Department, Government of West Bengal, iii) the Principal Secretary, Municipal Affairs Department, and iv) Chief Executive Officer, KMDA. His notes, suggestions etc., were never placed by the petitioner before the members of the said Committee. He has no authority in accepting or rejecting any tender exceeding rupees two crores in value. As the IAS officers are not technical persons members of the engineering cadre had been made permanent invitees and the decision was taken by the Board for deliberation. The petitioner was not a member of the said committee.;