1. It is admitted by the respondents Nos.1 to 3 that the petitioner was serving with them. The facts, as stated in the petition by the petitioner, are to the effect that he was serving with the respondents Nos.1, 2 and 3 in his capacity as junior officer for continuous period of 17 years, where-after he is said to have been served with the charge-sheet for the misconduct/misappropriation of some amount at his hands, and it is further stated by the respondents that inquiry was initiated against him, which was duly held by an Enquiry Officer, appointed by them, who completed the same, and recommended that the petitioner be awarded penalty of removal from service under the provisions of Removal from Service (Special Powers) Ordinance, 2000, as amended, hence the petitioner had earlier filed C.P. bearing No,D-1829 of 2006, wherein the petitioner had requested to permit him to withdraw the same with permission to file fresh one; vide order dated 28-8-2007, the said request was allowed, in consequence whereof present Petition bearing No,D-1902 of 2007 is filed by him.
2. Comments have been filed by the said respondents, denying the pleas raised by the petitioner; petitioner has asserted that his removal from the service was mala fide at the hands of the respondents and that entire record was fabricated against him in order to see him removed from the service, otherwise he never committed any misconduct and/or misappropriation of any amount; further contention of the petitioner is that he was never assigned any work in the steel mills of the respondents to deal with any financial responsibility, and that such an allegation is falsely made against him; the petitioner specifically further pleaded that the inquiry proceedings were most unfair inasmuch as, inter alia, that despite his repeated requests for supply of the copy of the enquiry report, the same was not supplied to him.
3. Some more grounds have further been raised by the petitioner in support of his petition.
4. During the course of the arguments when learned counsel for the respondents is inquired as to whether the receipt is available with the respondents to prove that the copy of the enquiry report was never supplied to the petitioner, learned counsel replied in the negative; when further asked as to the consequence of such statement so made by him at the bar, learned counsel could not give any satisfactory reply to the same.
5. As such, it is not necessary to enter upon the discussion of remaining grounds urged by the petitioner in support of his petition and suffice it to say that it is a settled principle of law that wherever the respondents/employers pleaded that enquiry proceedings were duly held against the employee, he is necessarily to be supplied with a copy of the enquiry report, and in the absence of receipt for supply of the same to the employee by the employer, presumption of law is to be drawn that such a plea on the part of the respondents is to be taken having not been proved.
6. Petitioner has further pleaded that the audit report was prepared by the office of the respondents who also acted as a "prosecutor" against the petitioner regarding the disputed inquiry proceedings.
7. Under the circumstances, this petition is admitted as well as allowed and the impugned penalty of removal from service of the petitioner by the respondents under the above stated Ordinance, 2000, is hereby set aside with direction to the respondents that petitioner shall stand reinstated in the service, but leaving them at the liberty to initiate fresh inquiry proceedings against the petitioner, if they so desire, and is so initiated, the same shall be strictly in accordance with the relevant provisions of law, and not otherwise.