- (1.) The instant petition has been filed against order dated April 4, 2002 (P-10) by which the petitioner has been dismissed from service and order dated January 27, 2005 (P-12) by which the dismissal of the petitioner has been maintained by the Board of Directors. The undisputed facts are that the petitioner was appointed as Technical officer in the Haryana Financial Corporation in June 1979. He was promoted as Assistant General Manager in 1985 and thereafter he was promoted as Deputy General Manager with the approval of the Board of Directors in 1993. On August 17, 1999, a charge-sheet (P-1) was issued to the petitioner to which he submitted his reply on December 14, 1999 (P-2). On December 15, 2000, the Inquiry Officer submitted his report (P-4) and came to the conclusion that the charges against the petitioner remained unsubstantiated. Accordingly, he was absolved of all the charges after conducting detailed enquiry. However, the matter was remitted back to the Inquiry Officer by the Managing Director vide order dated June 19, 2001 (P-5). The Managing Director pointed out some deficiency in the enquiry report and remanded the same back with the advise to submit the same after clarifying four issues. The Inquiry Officer thereafter submitted his report on September 5, 2001 (P-7) holding the petitioner as guilty of the following charge :- "He passed the orders for release of the next instalment of loan amounting to Rs. 37500/- on 20.11.92 without ensuring compliance of the stipulations and without execution of legal documents in favour of the Corporation by the incoming sole prop. of the unit Sh. Krishan Mohan. Subsequently, release was also made without ensuring compliance of the above. An amount of Rs. 3.77 lacs was released in favour of the machinery supplier on 4.12.1992. Further after the said disbursement, the machinery was not got verified at site till April, 1993 when he was Branch Manager, Gurgaon." On the basis of the aforementioned findings, a show cause notice dated December 20, 2001 (P-8) was issued to the petitioner to which he had sent his reply dated February 8, 2002 (P-9). On April 4, 2002 (P-10), the Managing Director passed an order intimating the petitioner that he has been dismissed from service of the respondent Corporation with immediate effect under Regulation 41 (1) and (2) of the Punjab Financial Corporation (Staff) Regulations, 1961 , as applicable to Haryana Financial Corporation. A detailed order bearing office order No. 1369 of the same date was also sent to the petitioner.
(2.) Mr. R.K. Malik, learned counsel for the petitioner has raised a short issue before us. According to the learned counsel, the Punishing Authority i.e. Managing Director did not issue a copy of the enquiry report before recording a finding that he has accepted the view taken by the Inquiry officer in his enquiry report dated September 5, 2001 (P-7). According to the learned counsel, the supply of enquiry report after he has been found guilty by the Inquiry Officer was mandatory in view of the fact that earlier the petitioner has been exonerated by the Inquiry Officer in its report dated December 15, 2000 (P-4). Mr. Malik has placed reliance on Para 29 of the judgment of Hon'ble the Supreme Court in the case of Managing Director, ECIL, V/s. B. Karunakar, 1993 4 SCC 727 and two Division Bench judgments of this Court in the cases of M.S. Sandhu V/s. Haryana Vidyut Parsaran Nigam Limited, 2005 4 SCT 628 and Ramesh Kumar V/s. State of Haryana and others, 2006 3 SCT 799. He has further pointed out that both the judgments are based on the Constitution Bench judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in B. Karunakar's case and the ratio of the judgment as depicted in paras 29, 30 and 31 has been taken into consideration.
(3.) Mr. Puneet Gupta, learned counsel for the respondent Corporation has argued that there is not even whisper in the writ petition showing that any prejudice has been caused to the case of the petitioner which is required to be shown as per the mandate of the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in B. Karunakar's case . He has placed firm reliance on para 31 of the judgment and argued that in cases where the Court or the Tribunal comes to the conclusion that the non-supply of the report would have made no difference to the ultimate findings and the punishment given, then the order of punishment is not required to be interfered with in all cases.;