' S. ABDUL JABBAR KHAN (CHAIRMAN). - Mr. Muhammad -Tamil Akhtar, ex-Assistant Socio-Economic Centre, Babawalpur has filed an appeal under section 4 of the Punjab Service Tribunal Act, 1974 in which he has impleaded Director General, Social Welfare and another as respondent. By virtue of his appeal he has prayed that he may be re-instated in service and the impugned order dated 20th September, 1977 passed by Deputy Director, Social Welfare, Bahawalpur arid the order passed by the Director-General on 8th November, 1979 be set aside.
2. Before we enter into the facts of this case it will be useful to mention here that this appeal was dismissed in default and was restored on the application of the appellant vide or order dated 7th September, 1980. With regard to the facts of the case the appellant who was working as Assistant since 27th May, 1976 was confronted with a charge sheet on 20th September, 1977 by Respondent No,
2. An Enquiry Officer was appointed who conducted the enquiry and gave his verdict on 25th July, 1977 holding the appellant guilty. As a result of the said verdict the Respondent No, 2 removed him from service vide his order dated 29th July, 1977. An appeal was lodged by the appellant which was rejected by respondent No. 1 vide his order dated 26th February, 1978 as being without any force. A review petition was also filed by the appellant with respondent No. 1 but the same was also dismissed vide order dated 11th June, 1978 by Respondent No, I. Aggrieved against this order the appellant filed an Appeal No, 241 of 1978 titled "Muhammad Jamil Akhtar V. Director, Social Welfare and another" before this Tribunal and the same was decided on 26th July, 1979 wherein it was held that as there was clear contravention of rule 15 of Punjab Civil Servants (Efficiency and Discipline)
Rules, 1975, therefore the appellate order was set aside and the case was remanded to Respondent No, I for fresh disposal after granting personal hearing to the appellant. Consequently the appellant was summoned by a notice dated 7th October, 1979, to appear before the Additional Director- General, Social Welfare Punjab, Laboure for personal hearing on 16th October, 1979. The appellant appeared before Mrs. Tallat Khalid Umar, Additional Director-General, Punjab, Lahore on 16th October, 1979. The appellant was asked to deposit Rs, 900 plus Rs, 268 which was due from him to which the appellant agreed in case his appeal was accepted and he was absolved of all the charges. However, by order dated 6th November, 1979 the appellant was informed that his Appeal was rejected after he was granted personal hearing by the Director-General. He was further directed to deposit over drawal of R&R Allow-Lance of Rs, 268 and Rs, 900 on account of misappropriation of P.L.A. r account. Hence this appeal.
8. Without going into the merits of this case the learned counsel for the appellant has urged that the basic point in this case was that the enquiry conducted by the Field Officer namely Khalid Naseer was defective in view of rule 7 of the Government Servants (E & D) Rules, 1975. According to the learned counsel the appeal is liable to succeed on this score only. Therefore it would be not necessary to take this Tribunal through the labyrinth of facts as it would be an exercise in futility resulting into wastage of this Tribunal time. We will look into this short ground by going through the record of the case with the assistance of learned District Attorney as well as the counsel for the appellant. What we find is that Mr. Khalid Naseer the Enquiry Officer secured written application by the following witnesses who were required to depose against the appellant
(1) Ch. Muhammad Nasir.
(2) Mr. Muhammad Yousaf.
(3) Mr. Nisar Ahmed Siddiqui.
' One collective application was also brought on record signed by 10 persons of which some names are eligible and some are not. Treating these applications as evidence in prosecution and reply of the appellant as defence evidence, he proceeded to write his enquiry report which runs into 26 pages. This novel procedure shows complete lack of knowledge of rules on the part of the Enquiry Officer otherwise he would no have started in this botch notch manner, Rule 7(3) is reproduced for reference :- "7, Procedure to be observed by the laquiry Officer and Inquiry ' Committee-Where an Inquiry Officer or Inquiry Committee is appointed, the authorised officer shall-
(4) The Inquiry Officer or the Committee, as the case may be, shall enquire into the charge and may examine such oral or documentary evidence in support of the charge or in defence of the accused, as may be considered no necessary, and the accused shall be entitled to cross-examine the witness against him."
The reading of this rule clearly manifests that written applications under no circumstances would substitute the recording of evidence and the opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses which are indispensable ingredient of rule 7 (3). Even if there would have been affidavits of the witnesses and affirming witnesses who were allowed lobe cross examined by the appellant the lacuna could have been fulfilled. Whereas in this case these are simple applications hardly without any indication whether the signatories of the same are the persons whose are mentioned below. Therefore we have no alternative but to strike down this sort of enquiry as absolutely illegal being in violation of the mandatory rules. We are also constrained to observe that the competent authority who had the excess to this bizarre procedure should have at once struck it down with the directions to the Enquiry Officer to proceed according to the rules framed under the Act. It seems that this aspect of the case was not brought to the notice of this Tribunal at the time when it decided to set aside the Appellate order which found it in contravention of rule 15 of the Government Servants (E & D) Rules, 1975.
' In the light of the above discussions, the first impugned order dated A 20th September, 1977 passed by Deputy Director is set aside as being without lawful authority and being illegal. Therefore any super structure based on illegal order is liable to fall down. We further proceed to se , aside the Appellate Order as well which is dated 6th/8th November,' 1979 passed by the D.G. Social Welfare.
We accept the appeal and remand the case to the Deputy Director with the directions that he will appoint somebody else than Mr. Khalid Naseer to conduct the enquiry against the appellant in accordance with the rules with the observations that the person so appointed should be conversant with the Punjab Civil Servants (E & D) Rules, 1975. The appellant would be deemed to remain under suspension from the very date of his removal and would be eligible to subsistence allowance. . Case remanded.