' A.
0. RAZIUR RAHMAN (MEMBER).-The Appellant, who was appointed as U. D. C. In the National Savings Organization by the Director, National Savings, Lahore, by an order, dated 13th October, 1975, was removed from service by an order, dated 13th March, 1980, issued by the Deputy Chief Director, National Savings Headquarters. The said order is reproduced below : "Government of Pakistan Central Directorate of National Savings, Islamabad."
' No. I. 1 (292)-Admn. 1/79, 15th March, 1980.
' OFFICE ORDER ' Whereas Mr. Ahsan Ahmed, Upper Division Clerk (Grade-7) National Savings Centre, Edward Road, Lahore was issued show-cause notices on 5th November, 1979 and 17th November, 1979 under the Government Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 1973.
' And whereas he has been found guilty of misconduct in both the cases.
' He is, therefore, removed from Government Service with immediate effect.
' Sd./- ' (M. D. MALIK), ' Deputy Chief Director"
2. Prior to the issuance of the above order, a show-cause notice was served on him on 5th November, 1979 on the ground of inefficiency and misconduct followed by a Memo. Dated 12th November, 1979, calling upon him to explain his conduct in regard to certain other allegations, followed by a further show-cause notice, dated 17th November, 1979, containing further allegations of inefficiency, irresponsible behaviour and gross misconduct
3. The show-cause notice dated 5th November, 1979, contained the main and the most important allegations against the Appellant and the Memo. Dated 12th November, 1979 and the subsequent show-cause notice, dated 17th November, 1979, are merely based on subsequent developments and off-shoots to the happening which led to the first show-cause notice. It would, therefore, be proper to give in detail all the relevant facts contained in the first show-cause notice. To quote the show-cause notice itself, the Appellant was charged as under : "(1) While you were posted as Upper Division Clerk, at National Savings Centre, Shahalam Market, Lahore you had made fraudulent alterations in the Withdrawal Slip No. 925938, presented by a student Account Holder, Amar Shames, to receive the payment of Rs. 50 from his Savings Account No. 802 on 24th June, 1979. You tampered with the record and fraudulently altered the amount of Rs. 50 to read as Rs. 80 in figures as well as words on the said slip under your own signature. Being guilty conscious, signatures of the innocent student were also obtained by you on the Ledger Card, whereas no such signature had ever been taken anywhere in the past. In this way you cheated the poor young student and deprived him of Rs. 30 his hard saved money.
(2) On scrutiny, the fraud was detected by the National Savings Officer, Incharge of the Centre. The embezzled amount of Rs. 30 was recovered from you on 26th June, 1979 and credited to the student's Saving Account No. 802 through Deposit Slip No. 116189. Dated 27th June, 1979 to compensate the Account ' Holder. Due to this fraud, committed by you on one hand, the reputation of the National Savings Department suffered badly and on the other hand, it gave irreparable loss to the goodwill of National Savings Centre, Shahalam Market, Lahore. In this way you have been found the most dishonest and unreliable person."
' In the Memo. Dated 12th November, 1979, the Appellant was required to explain as to why disciplinary action should not be taken against him for misconduct which, to reproduce the words of the Memo. Was as under : "(1) You contacted Mr. Hilal Qadeer Upper Division Clerk National Savings Centre, Shahalam Market, Lahore, at his house on 6th November, 1979 at 7-15 a. m. To have the office secrets illegally from him, enabling you to influence the student Account Holder, who had been defrauded by you.
(ii) Again at 9.00 a. m. On 9th November, 1979, as mutually agreed, you reached the house of Mr. Bilal Qadeer, Upper Division Clerk, to collect the secret information illegally from him and you were caught red-handed by Qazi Saleem, Stenographer of this Directorate. Having received information about your illegal activities, Qazi Saleem Ullah, Stenographer, was deputed to conduct this raid and on trap you on the spot. Your nefarious and activities indicate your mala fide intention."
5. As regards the second show-cause notice, dated 17th November, 1979, the charges listed therein were as follows : "(1) You have used abusive, filthy, improper and objectionable language against your higher officers, which is a misconduct on your part. It is on record that you have blamed them for mala fide action and mala fide intention. It is also on record that you have called the Enquiry Officer and the other senior officers as thieves.
(2) On page 2 of your application addressed to the Chief Director on 20th October, 1979, you have blamed the Joint Director for the report submitted by National Savings Officer, Shahalam Market, Lahore, in connection with your bad character, dishonesty and malpractice. The National Savings Officer had reported against you at his own accord and he had documentary evidence against you.
(3) On page 2 of your application addressed to the Chief Director on 20th October, 1979, you had falsely claimed that you were not relieved on 9th October, 1979. As per office record you had been relieved on 9th October, 1979, but you had refused to receive the relieving orders given by the National Savings Officer, Shahalam Market, Lahore. In this way you submitted false and incorrect report to the Director, which is misconduct on your part.
(4) According to the Rules, no direct representation/application can be submitted to the Chief Director. You addressed a direct letter to the Chief Director on 20th October, 1979 and thus violated the Government orders.
' You have misreported in your letter addressed to the Chief Director on 20th October, 1979, that you were refused to join duty on 20th October, 1979, due to revengeful attitude of Joint Director. Being on sick list you were not authorised to join duty without producing the Medical Fitness Certificate. It was managed by you on 21st October, 1979, and not on 20th, as is evident from the said certificate."
' Reply to the first show-cause notice was submitted by the Appellant on 17th November, 1979. It is not known whether any reply was submitted by him to the Memo. Dated 12th November, 1979, calling for his explanation. But, so far as the show-cause notice dated 17th November, 1979, is concerned, reply was submitted by him on 24th November, 1979. On 9th December, 1979, the Officer Incharge, National Savings Centre, Edward Road, Lahore, was informed by the Assistant Director, National Savings, Lahore, that the reply of the Appellant had been considered and found unsatisfactory. He was further informed as follows : "He may appear for personal hearing on 13th December, 1979 at 11.00 A. M. In the Directorate of National Savings, Lahore, if he desires. He may be informed accordingly."
7. After a lapse of about three months the impugned order was passed. Departmental representation was made by the Appellant against this order on 15th April, 1980. On 20th May, 1980, the Chief Director, National Savings Centre, Lahore, turned down the representation and informed the Appellant that his appeal could not be accepted. He also confirmed the orders removing the Appellant from Government service. Thereafter, the Appellant came up in appeal before this Tribunal on 24th June, 1980. After preliminary hearing on 26th August, 1980, the appeal was admitted for regular hearing, which took place on 24th December, 1981 and it is being disposed of now.
8. We have heard both the parties in detail, perused the documents submitted by the Appellant and also examined the personal file of the Appellant which were called for from the department.
The one impression that most prominently has been conveyed to us is that, although, the allegations levelled against the Appellant were of very serious nature, the concerned authorities took it for granted that they were so well-proved and irrefutable that a formal enquiry was not called for and, accordingly, show-cause notices were issued on that basis. No enquiry of any sort appears to have been held and, although, the matter was not such as to justify dispensing with the appointment of an Enquiry Officer under Rule 5 (1) (iii) of the Government Servants (Efficiency and Discipline), Rules, 1973, decision appears to have been taken to proceed with the case without the appointment of an Enquiry Officer or an Enquiry Committee for the holding of a regular enquiry.
Despite this, no formal decision in this behalf appears to have been recorded, nor any reasons placed on file, for dealing with the case in a summary manner under Rule 5 (1) (iii) of the Government Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 1973. This, however, in our opinion, is a serious defect in the proceedings, which clearly stand vitiated thereby. Although, the relevant rule says that- "if the Authorised Officer decides that it is not necessary to have an enquiry conducted through an Enquiry Officer or an Enquiry Committee, he may inform the accused of the action proposed to be taken against him and give him a reasonable opportunity of showing cause against that action."
The intention of the rule is not to leave it to the sweet will or unfettered discretion of the concerned officer to hold an enquiry or dispense with it.1 The purpose of the rule is to enable the Authorised Officer to dispense with the enquiry where the facts are clearly-well-established and do not require any formal confirmation of proof. In the present case, when not a only were the facts, prima facie, not established but were also contested by the Appellant, it was rather arbitrary on the part of the concerned officer to have assumed that the charges were so obvious and unchallenge able that no verification or formal proof through a regular enquiry was called for. In the memorandum of Appeal, it has been alleged hut the Appellant was the victim of office intrigue, because he was an important and material witness in the case of robbery and looting in the National Savings Centre, Dharampura in long, when he was posted there and that, because of his activities in connection with the enquiry into the theft case, he had incurred the displeasure of some officers and that is why allegations were cooked up against him and he was punished with removal from service. In such a situation, it was only reasonable to expect that a regular enquiry should have been held to determine whether, and to what extent the charges were true and whether there was any ground for believing that the charges had been fabricated on account of office intrigue. Our own study of the personal file of the Appellant discloses that, while the main incident, which formed the basis of the first show-cause notice against the Appellant took place on 24th June, 1979 and, much later than this, that is, on 8th August, 1979, the Officer Incharge of the National Savings Centre, Shahalmi Market, had reported the work and conduct of the Appellant to be "satisfactorily", the first report about the incident of 24th June, 1979, was not made earlier than 6th October, 1979, which goes to show that this report was clearly an after-thought and, as such the possibility of concoction, as alleged by the Appellant, cannot be entirely ruled out. The definite finding as it whether there was concoction or fabrication in the charges levelled could have been given only after a full and fair enquiry, conducted in an independent and impartial manner. This would have been possible only by the appointment of an Enquiry Officer or an Enquiry Committee. That not having been done, it could not by any stretch, of imagination, be claimed that the allegations were so obviously well- established and irrefutable as to justify the issuance of the show-cause notice without a proper enquiry into the matter.
9. It is also clear, from the perusal of the personal file of the Appellant, that, even before the first show-cause notice was served op him on 5th November, 1979, he had been reported against as undersirable by the former Officer incharge of the National Savings Centre, Dharampura, under whom he had worked previously and it had been stated that, on a particular date, he remained absent from duty without proper sanction of the competent authority and that this was done quite a long time after the alleged date of absence and even much after he had already been transferred to another centre, which goes to show that, for some reason or the other, officers, both in the Dharampura Centre and in the Directorate of National Savings Centre, Lahore, were raking up old matters to find fault with the Appellant. In other words, there was some sort of a tag-of-war going on between tae Appellant and other employees of the Directorate of National Savings. This does lend some sort of credence to the statement of the Appellant that he was being victimised by some officers in the organisation. Although we are not in a position to say whether and to what extent, this statement is true-it does appear from the perusal of the personal file of the Appellant that as a sequel to the explanation submitted by him, in reply to the show-cause notice served on him on the basis of the alleged forgery and cheating, a large number of show-cause notices, charge-sheets and memos. Of explanation were issued to him, which fact clearly indicates that the Appellant was not in the good books of the authorities and that they were determind to pursue him vigorously and punish him on as many counts as possible. This is something highly extraordinary and indicative of the fact that the authorities, as well as the Appellant, were out to find as much fault with each other as they could. When this fact is reviewed in the light of the circumstances in which the report about the alleged forgery was made, it would appear that the guilt of the Appellant was not so obvious as to be taken for granted and believed in without a formal enquiry.
The relevant circumstances arc, as already mentioned, that the alleged incident took place on 24th June, 1979, but report about this was made as late as 6th October, 1979, and much prior to this a "satisfactory" report on the work and conduct of the Appellant was sent to the Directorate on 8th August, 1979. In addition to this, we have observed, after careful examination of the personal file of the Appellant, that the statement purported to have been written by the Account Holder, on whose withdrawal slip the forgery was alleged to have been committed, is dated as late as 24th September, [979, when, admittedly, the fraud was detected soon after it had been committed and the amount involved re-deposited on 27th June, 1979. When we consider all these matters, alongwith the obvious fact that the genuine signatures of the Account Holder, as well as the allegedly forged one, bear such complete resemblance that it is difficult to establish that any forgery was at all committed and, also considering the facts that the signatures were not sent for the opinion of the handwriting expert, any action taken on the assumption that forgery had been committed would appear to be very risky.
10. Considering all the facts and such circumstances of the case, as discussed above, we hold that the charge of misconduct based on the allegation of forgery and cheating was not established and, therefore, the removal of the Appellant from service, without holding a proper, detailed, and formal enquiry, was not justified and cannot, therefore, be upheld. Since the other charges of misconduct based on allegations connected with the replies given to the show-cause notice by the Appellant and the defence put up by him to the allegations are only ancillary to the main charge of forgery and cheating and since these also have not been established through a proper enquiry, we consider them also as not sufficient to justify the action taken against the Appellant. In view of the above, we allow the appeal and set aside the order of removal from service appealed against. We further order that the Appellant be re-instated in service forthwith, with all consequential benefits.
11. However, before parting with the case, we would like to place it on record that perusal of the documents connected with this case, as well as of the personal file of the Appellant shows that, apart from the rights and wrongs of the parties involved in the case, there is no doubt whatsoever that things bad been conducted in the National Savings Centre, Shahalam Market, Lahore, in almost slipshod manner and that the action taken against the Appellant after a lapse of several months indicated that either the case had been concocted or that, being genuine, it had been knowingly closed and further action in the matter dropped but, subsequently, revived- on account of some personal or group motives by the concerned officers. In either case, the credibility of the officers is put seriously in doubt and the fact that this point was quietly overlooked by the higher authorities does not reflect very creditably on their efficiency and performance. This is something which should attract the attention of the concerned Ministry, the Ministry of Finance.
12. With the above order and observations, the appeal is disposed of.
13. No order as to costs.
' MUHAMMAD IRSHAD KHAN (Members).-I agree.