ABDUL JABBAR KHAN (CHAIRMAN).- Sher Ahmad, ex-Patwari, has filed this appeal under section 4 of the Punjab Service Tribunals Act, 1974, in which he has impleaded Commissioner, Sargodha Division, Sargodha and Assistant Commissioner /Collector, Bhalwal Sub-Division, Bhalwal, District Sargodha, as respondents.
2. By virtue of this appeal he has prayed that the order dated 2-8-198, --passed by the A.
C./Collector, Bhalwal and order dated 6-2-1982, passed by the Commissioner, Sargodha Division, Sargodha, be set aside and appellant be reinstated in service with all back benefits.
3. Brief facts of the case are that the appellant was charge sheeted by the learned Assistant Commissioner/Collector, Bhalwal, on 22-6-1980 on the ground that he intentionally showed specific Khasra No. 1839/1, 1843 and 1844 at Khata No. 45 of Register R L II of Mauza Bhera to be allotted to Mst. Wajida Begum daughter of Said Muhammad jointly owned by Muslims and non- Muslims and it was yet to be partitioned. Rest of charges are the ancillary of this main incident. The explanation of the appellant on the said charge-sheet was not found satisfactory and the matter was referred to the Enquiry Officer. Mian Bashir Ahmad, Magistrate 1st Class Bhalwal, conducted the inquiry and consequent upon the inquiry report the appellant was served with a show-cause notice by respondent No. 2. The appellant submitted his reply to the show-cause notice. Learned A.
C./ Collector dismissed the appellant from service.. Aggrieved by the order dated 2-8-1980, the appellant filed appeal before the learned Commissioner who rejected the same. Hence this appeal.
3. We have heard that the learned counsel fort 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.
4. Before going into the merits of the case learned counsel for the appellant has submitted that the Punjab Civil Servants (E & D) Rules provide three distinct and separate authorities for proceeding which are "Authority", Authorised Officer" and "Inquiry Officer" and the instance charge-sheet was framed by the A. C. And the show-cause notice by the same officer. Thus according to the learned counsel he assumed as Authority and Authorised Officer. Learned Counsel for the appellant has submitted that failure of the authority to appoint an Authorised Officer according to the rules, was clear infringement of rules and order was liable to be set aside on this score alone. Learned counsel has further submitted that as no Authorised Officer was appointed in this case, therefore, there was no recommendation by the authority either for major or minor penalty to be imposed upon the appellant. Such like procedure according to the learned counsel was not sustainable under the law. It has been further argued that criminal case under section 420/468, P.P.C. Had been got registered against the appellant at P. S. Bhera vide F.
1. R. No. 10 dated 18-1 1979, which is still pending and guilt and innocence of the appellant has yet to be determined. According to the learned counsel the decision of the criminal Court should have been awaited and departmental inquiry in the case of the appellant was uncalled for.
5. With regard to the merits of the case it was submitted that the allotment of land was alleged to have been made to Mst. Wajida Begum about 13 years prior to the posting of the appellant in Bhera Circle and thus the responsibility for showing allotment of land in question in the name of Mst.
Wajida Begum without getting the same first partitioned lies on the shoulders of the Patwaris the predecessors of the appellant and not on the appellant. Learned counsel has further argued that the act of the appellant was based on the attestation of photostat copy of the Register R. L. II Tehsil Bhera to which he had no excess as the same were lying in the safe custody of Sub-Treasury, Bhalwal under the orders of the then Assistant Commissioner, Bhalwal and he issued Fard on the basis of said copies and thus he only performed his duties and nothing else. If the attested copy was forged it was the duty of those who had issued the same to Mst. Wajida Begum. The appellant entered Mutation No. 7472 on receipt of application dated 21-2-1977 of Mst. Wajida Begum and in compliance with the orders of the Revenue Officers and not at his own. Learned counsel vehemently argued that the said mutation was entered on the basis of a registered deed strictly in accordance with the provisions of section 42 of the West Pakistan Land Revenue Act, 1967, and the same was verified by Girdawar Halqa and sanctioned by the Revenue Officer in Ijlas-i-Aam. In this manner it was submitted that the appellant was not at fault in any manner whatsoever and has been punished only on conjectures and assumptions.
6. Learned District Attorney has adopted in extenso the parawiae comments filed by the A. C.
Bhalwal and has stoutly resisted that the procedure adopted was in any way against the E & D Rules, 1975. He has further relied on the report of the Enquiry Officer and .Has defended the detailed order passed by the A. C. As well as of the Commissioner and according to him these are well- considered orders taking all the pros and cons of this case into consideration.
7. We have given our anxious thought to the arguments made before us and find that one Muhammad Ayub Piracha of Sargodha submitted numerous applications against the appellant in which it was alleged that the appellant had managed to show allotment of Khasra Nos. 1839/1, 1843, 1844 at Khata No. 45 of Register R L II of Mauza Bhera in favour of Mst. Wajida Begum daughter of Said Muhammad and later on got it transacted for a consideration of Rs. 18,000 vide mutation No. 7472 in favour of Mushtaq Rasool. On receipt of these allegations the Tehsildar, Bhawal, was directed to hold preliminary enquiry. The Tehsildar summoned the appli--cant, appellant and recorded their statements. He also inspected all the relevant record and reported that there was no Khata No. 45 mentioned in the Register R L II. It was also found by the said Tehsildar that an unauthenticated paper had been pasted at the place of Khata. He also found that copy prepared by the appellant was prepared from photostat copy which the appellant could not produce before him despite his repeated directions. The findings of the Tehsildar were as under :-
(1) The Khata in question was owned by the Muslims and non-Muslims jointly and was not partitioned.
(2) Without partition of the said Khata as per copy supplied by the Patwari specific Khasra numbers have been shown allotted.
(3) Khata No. 45 of Register R L II has been intentionally destroyed by the culprits, after preparing its photostat copy,
5. (4) At the time of implementation Khata No. 45 and mutation No. 7472 in Register Haqdaran Zamin for the year 1977 in favour of Mst. Wajida Begum daughter of Said Muhammad, the accused Patwari intentionally managed to show the name of allottee as Mst. Wajida Begum daughter of Said Muhammad alias Qutab Ali the father-in-law of late Muhammad Jameel Patwari.
8. We would not like to reproduce the arguments so advanced by him and would like to give analysis of the salient points ofthis case which appeal to our mind.
9. Accepting as correct that the alleged allotment was made to Mst. Wajida Begum in the year 1964 and the appellant had nothing to do with that even but the fact remains that this allotment remained shrouded in mistry for full 13 years and only came into limelight when the appellant took charge of this Circle. We have seen the Register R L II and found that the original sheet was missing and new entries had been incorporated on white paper pasted in place of the original. We confronted the appellant with this situation and asked him to show this Tribunal whether Khasra Nos. Incorporated by him were incorporated in the said sheet. We examined the sheet together alongwith his counsel but could not find mention of the disputed Khasra Nos. In that document. The appellant came out with a plea that in fact these particulars Nos. Must have been in the original sheet which was not available on the record. We gave him allowance for the same but confronted him with second position as to whether he consulted lama Bandi subsequent to the same so as to verify whether the copy of photostat copy of R L II tallied with the same or not The appellant had no answer. We examined Jama Bandi of 1963-64 as well as the subsequent one and found that the said Khasra Nos. Were not mentioned in the revenue record of 1963-64, which was only in 1977 that the appellant incorporated the disputed Khasra Nos. On the basis of photostat copy of R L II which was a copy of copy allegedly issued by Copying Agency and the same was not produced by the appellant in spite of repeated requests by the Enquiry Officer at the time of enquiry. If these numbers had not been incorporated and the Fard of the same had not been given by the appellant to Mst. Wajida Begum, no Registered Deed could have been executed and no mutation in consequence thereof would have been sanctioned.
10. Learned Assistant Commissioner has also pointed out another act of the appellant wherein he has tried to show that the present allottee Mst. Wajida Begum was actually the same who was allotted this land in the beginning. To create this impression he added the word alias with the parentage of the said Mst. Wajida Begum by showing her daughter of Said Muhammad alias Qutab Shah. The documents which the appellant produced in his defence Exhs. D & L do not contain the word alias Qutab Shah at all. The allegations against the appellant by the complainant were to the extent that Mst. Wajida Begum daughter of Qutab Shah was refugee of District Karnal who was only four years of age at the time of Partition and he father died at Bhera while the original allottee Mst. Wajida Begum daughter of Said Muhammad was refugee of Merrut. This being state of affairs with regard to the merits of the case, we fully endorse the observations and conclusion drawn by the learned Assistant Commissioner, Commissioner Sargodha Division.
11. We now deal with the legal objections raised by the appellant in his appeal through his learned counsel. The procedure adopted under the E & D Rules by the competent authority is fully protected under the Delegation of Powers Rules and the Assistant Commissioner could act as Authority as well as Authorised Officer. We have disposed of a number of cases on this point in which we have upheld this procedure.
12. With regard to the fact that the criminal case had been registered against the appellant the same does not in any way forbid the departmental authority to proceed against a civil servant after holding a fulfledged enquiry against him. In the present case formal inquiry has not been dispensed with whereas the case has been thrashed out first by Tehsildar in preliminary inquiry and subsequently by a Magistrate, 1st Class who was appointed an Enquiry Officer in this case. The appellant was given a show-cause notice to which he replied and he was given full opportunity of personal hearing. We are of the considered opinion that no illegality or contravention of procedure has been committed in this case.
18. In view of the above detailed analysis of the entire case, we find no reason to interfere with the two well considered and lucid judgments delivered by the Assistant Commissioner as well as learned Commissioner and proceed to dismiss the appeal as being without any merits. However the parties shall bear their own costs. To be communicated to the parties.