Briefly the facts of the case are that during posting of the petitioner as Project Engineer, Rahim Yar Khan, a project of sewerage scheme was launched and it became operational in the year 2012.
Subsequently, however, some blockage was observed in sewerage lines, whereupon, different inspections were carried out to know about the cause for failure of the sewerage system.
Ultimately, through Notification/letter No.DIR(ASSEM) CMO/15/OT-04/057568 dated 24th of March, 2015 a Committee has been constituted under the directions of Chief Minister Punjab, mainly consisting of six Members and said Committee had the option to add any other person as its member. Through the said Notification/letter it has been desired that the Committee shall convene its meeting, conclude recommendations and refer the case to NAB for initiation of legal/criminal action against the delinquents. This notification/letter is under challenge through the instant writ petition.
2. The contention of learned counsel for the petitioner is that already three fact finding inquiries have been conducted in the issue and petitioner was not declared responsible for the fault in sewerage line; the impugned notification does not have any backing of law as it is violative of the Punjab Employees Efficiency, Discipline & Accountability Act, 2006 (hereinafter to be called as "PEEDA") and that some members of the said Committee are private persons and prima facie it appears that same has been constituted with malafide intention.
3. The learned Additional Advocate General has opposed this petition by arguing that only a fact finding inquiry has been ordered through the impugned notification/letter to probe into the matter and fix responsibility and the Chief Minister being the authority is fully competent to initiate fact finding inquiry.
4. I have heard the arguments of learned counsel for the parties and perused the available record with their assistance.
5. Although, earlier three inquiries were conducted and as per stance of learned counsel for the petitioner recommendations of inquiries were approved by the Chief Minister but admittedly those inquiries were not under PEEDA or any other law, rather those were just preliminary inquiries to probe into the reasons behind the fault in sewerage system. The Chief Minister Punjab being the authority under service rules against the employees of senior post, could initiate any fact finding inquiry, so as to protect the public exchequer and ensure good governance and for this purpose it is of paramount consideration that the matter involving colossal losses to the public treasury must be interrogated at all levels to unearth the real delinquents. This practice would surely promote a sense of responsibility amongst the employees, irrespective of their nature of job or pay scale and ultimately its benefit would flow to plug such types of mishaps in future.
6. In the report and parawise comments, the respondents have categorically admitted that petitioner is not being proceeded under PEEDA. It is further reported that this only being a fact finding inquiry, unless and until responsibility is fixed against specific person, relevant Agency or Company, no further proceedings will be initiated against the petitioner or anyone else.
7. In view of the above, when so far no action has been taken against the petitioner, no adverse order has been passed against him and there are no recommendations against him, it cannot be said that any of his right has been infringed, so as to maintain this writ petition. Thus, at this stage merely on the basis of farfetched apprehension of the petitioner no writ can be issued to stop the inquiry process, rather the same appears to be premature attempt on the part of the petitioner to frustrate the inquiry proceedings.
8. As regards the provision in the impugned Notification regarding submission of reference to NAB, suffice it to say that obviously such process shall be initiated when some tangible material against any of the person/employee is collected during the proposed inquiry and furthermore, the NAB authorities have their own mechanism to initiate proceedings under the NAB Ordinance and mere findings or recommendations of such inquiry committee are not to be considered as judgment of guilt against such person or employee.
9. For what has been discussed above, respectfully placing reliance on the case "KHALID MAHMOOD CH. and others versus GOVERNMENT OF THE PUNJAB through Secretary, Livestock and Dairy Development" (2002 SCM R 805) and "Mir NABI BAKHSH KHAN KHOSO versus BRANCH MANAGER, NATIONAL BANK OF PAKISTAN, JHATPAT (DERA ALLAH YAR) BRANCH and 3 others" (2000 SCM R 1017), the instant writ petition is held to be premature and is dismissed.