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صرف 1000 روپے میں 10 وکلاء تک کی براہِ راست رابطہ تفصیلات حاصل کریں اور کال یا واٹس ایپ کے ذریعے موزوں قانونی ماہر سے رابطہ کر کے اپنا معاملہ پورے اعتماد کے ساتھ آگے بڑھائیں۔
Case No. 67/368 of 1983, decided on 21st December, 1983,
---R. 3--Misconduct--Civil servant charged with misconduct--Evidence exonerating him before Enquiry Officer ignored--Extraneous factors taken into consideration--Civil servant punished with censure and stoppage of three increments--Order being conjectural and against solid evidence set aside.
M.M. Rahim for Appellant. A.G. Humayun, District Attorney for Respondents.
Farooq Ahmad, Junior Clerk office of the Deputy Commissioner Bahawalnagar, has filed this appeal under section 4 of the Punjab Service Tribunals Act, 1974, in which he has impleaded the Deputy Commissioner, Bahawalnagar and the Commissioner, Bahawalpur Division, Bahawalpur, as respondents.
2. By virtue of this appeal he has prayed that the impugned orders, dated 13-5-1982 as well as of 26-1-1983, passed by the respondents, be set aside being unjustified.
3. Brief facts of the case are as under:---
Qazi Abdus Salam was a lease-holder of certain land when a complaint against him was put up before the Deputy Commissioner. The learned Deputy Commissioner detailed the Assistant Commissioner, Minchanabad to hold enquiry into the matter. The said Assistant Commissioner conducted inquiry and submitted report to the learned Deputy Commissioner. On receiving the inquiry report the learned Deputy Commissioner issued a notice in the name of Qazi Abdus Salam as to why his land should not be resumed in view of the inquiry report of the learned Assistant Commissioner. Aggrieved against this order the said Qazi Abdus Salam filed appeal before the Additional Commissioner Revenue who, vide his order, dated 30-4-1981, directed the Deputy Commissioner that he should afford personal hearing to the said Qazi Abdus Salam before taking any action against him i.e. resumption of land. The order of the said learned Additional Commissioner vas received in the Colony Branch of the Deputy Commissioner's Office, Bahawalnagar, where the appellant was working as Junior Clerk at the relevant time. He received the said order on 11-5-1981 and submitted the same with his note to the Head Clerk on 16-5-1981. The Head Clerk took notice of the said note and forwarded the same to the General Assistant for onward transmission to the Deputy Commissioner. However, it seems that the file did not see the light of the day and ultimately was put up to the Deputy Commissioner on 20-6-1981. In the meanwhile it transpired that the said Qazi Abdus Salam had secured a stay order from the Civil Judge, Bahawalnagar on 9-6-1981, against the Deputy Commissioner not to proceed with the case any further till the decision of the said case by the said Court. In these circumstances, the Deputy Commissioner felt that the file has been purposely delayed in the office in order to facilitate the said Qazi Abdus Salam to go to Civil Court and secure a stay order in his favour. An inquiry was ordered into the matter and, vide inquiry report, dated 6-1-1982 conducted by Mr. Anwar Ali Malik, E. A. C., it was held that the appellant was guilty for retaining the file with him in order to help Qazi Abdus Salam. The Deputy Commissioner after the receipt of the said inquiry report visited the appellant with censure and stoppage of three annual increments with cumulative effect. Aggrieved against this order, the appellant filed appeal before the Commissioner, Bahawalpur who after going through the record of the case as well as hearing the appellant in person through his counsel, maintained the order of the Deputy Commissioner, vide order, dated 26-1-1983.
4. I have heard the learned counsel for the appellant as well as learned District Attorney assisted by the representative of the Department and have perused the record of this case carefully with their assistance.
5. Learned counsel for the appellant has submitted that once the appellant had submitted his note on 16-5-1981 to the Head Clerk he was functus officio of the matter and was not responsible for the delay which was caused by putting up of the said file before the Deputy Commissioner. It has been argued that the said Head Clerk appeared before the Enquiry Officer where he made a categorical admission that the appellant was not at all responsible for the delay and the file was detail-_,d in the office for reasons not known to him but all the same the appellant could not be held responsible for the same. It has been further argued that the land of Qazi Abdus Salam had to be resumed after he had to be heard in person, a condition precedent so laid down in the order of Additional Commissioner and thus no action could be taken by the learned Deputy Commissioner against the said Qazi Abdus Salam unless the said condition stood fulfilled. In this manner learned counsel for the appellant has argued that Qazi Abdus Salam sought an opportunity to move to a Civil Court at any time before this eventuality had occurred, as such the appellant could not be visited with the penalty unless and until it was so proved that he was in league with Qazi Abdus Salam in this manner or that he was the custodian of the file throughout without associating any other functionary of the said order. Learned counsel for the appellant has assailed the order of the learned Commissioner which he has categorized as conjectural as well as presumptuous, relying on extraneous elements which in no manner were concerned with the case or the issue was before him.
6. On the other hand learned District Attorney has submitted that the order of the learned Deputy Commissioner or the order of the learned Commissioner were fully justified as according to the statement made by the Head Clerk before the Commissioner, the relevant file had been handed over by him 'Dasti' to the appellant who promised that he would submit the same before the Deputy Commissioner at his own. Furthermore learned District Attorney has pointed out that while the Head Clerk before the Enquiry Officer, the appellant had full chance to cross-examine him but he failed to elucidate this point in his favour as to the custody of the file and thus he cannot take benefit of certain admission which were extracted during the course of cross-examination. In this manner, learned District Attorney has also relied on the statement of Head Clerk which he made before the Enquiry Officer as well as his admission before the learned Commissioner during the hearing of the said appeal before him, by the said Head Clerk.
7. 1 have given my anxious thought to the arguments so advanced by the parties and have very carefully perused the record as well as reasoning of the learned Commissioner and learned Deputy Commissioner by which they have held the appellant guilty of this manipulation.
8. The fact of the matter is that the appellant did submit this file to the Head Clerk on 16-5-1981 duly signed and dated by him. There is no denial of the fact that the Head Clerk did take notice of the same by appending his signature but failed to put the date on which he received the file. It also cannot be denied that there is nothing on the record to show that the said Head Clerk has handed over this file 'Dasti' to the appellant for transmission of the same to the General Assistant for the purpose of submitting it to the learned Deputy Commissioner. In this manner the arguments of the learned District Attorney as well s the stand taken by the Head Clerk before the learned Commissioner would be nothing but a fact against the record. I cannot also remain oblivious of a very strong fact of this case i.e. the admission of the Head Clerk before the Enquiry Officer in which he has clearly exonerated the appellant of the delay which resulted in allowing Qazi Abdus Salam to secure a stay order in his favour from a Civil Court. With this statement of the Head Clerk in the field it would be unfair to hold that the file remained with the appellant as the same was given Dasti to him, an averment which is said to have been made by the said Head Clerk while appearing before the learned Commissioner. The learned Commissioner should have at once confronted the Head Clerk with the statement before the Enquiry Officer and then he should have arrived at a finding after commenting upon the same. In this manner a very important aspect of the case has been lightly dealt with by the learned Commissioner and he has introduced certain factors exclusive to his own knowledge into the judgment which cannot be allowed to come on the record, as such like matters would be extraneous to the issue so involved in this case. The conclusion arrived at by the learned Commissioner with regard to the responsibility of the appellant for holding the file for over a period of 2 months, seems nothing but conjectural and against the solid evidence on the record in the form of admission by the Head Clerk believed by the. Commissioner while making
his statement before him.
9. In view of the above analysis of the facts of this case, I have no hesitation to hold that the appellant was not at all responsible for holding this file as there is not an iota of evidence on the record to make him responsible for the same. Mr. Abdul Haq Shahid, Head Clerk who was the immediate .superior of the appellant, would be the best judge of this affair and when he positively declared that the delay which was so caused in submitting the file before the learned Deputy Commissioner, was not on the part of the appellant at all and the file remained with the office, there was no reason to hold that the appellant was responsible to keep the file.
10. In the light of the above analysis of the entire case proceed to accept the appeal, set aide the two impugned orders as without any justification and against the record so provided before this Tribunal. However, there will be no order as to costs.
M.I. Appeal accepted.
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