' S. ABDUL JABBAR KHAN (CHAIRMAN).--Mushtaq Ali, ex-Warden has filed this appeal under section 4 of the Punjab Service Tribunals Act, 1974, for setting aside the order of dismissal passed by respondents Nos,1 and 2 and appellate order dated passed by the respondent No,3. He has impleaded the Superintendent, District Jail, Kasur, the Superintendent, Hqrs. Jail Lahore and the Inspector-General of Prisons, Punjab, Lahore, as respondents.
2. By virtue of this appeal, he has prayed that the impugned orders be set aside and appellant be reinstated in service with back benefits.
3. Brief facts of the case are that during his daily round of the Jail on 20-10-1981, one under-trial Bashir son of Abdul Aziz gave a secret information to the Superintendent Jail about a secret plan on the part of certain dangerous prisoners of escaping from Jail. On receipt of this information the Deputy Superintendent Jail was deputed to examine the report and to submit a report. It was detected that the secret information conveyed to the Superintendent Jail was correct and some gratings of Barrack No,9-A, where the dangerous prisoners were confined, were found out. A detailed inquiry into the matter was conducted and three warders including the appellant were suspended for connivance in the escape plan. All of them were served with a charge-sheet. It was found that the appellant had collected Rs,2,000 from prisoner Ghafoor from the Sessions Court and delivered this amount inside the Jail to one of the prisoners involved in the conspiracy. In view of the above allegation, the appellant was dismissed from service. He preferred appeal before the 1.G.P. Which was rejected. Hence this appeal.
4. We have heard the learned counsel for 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.
5. Learned counsel for the appellant has assailed the impugned orders mainly on the ground that the appellant was not heard in person and this being the case of corruption, a regular enquiry was a must, as laid down in various rulings of this Tribunal from time to time.
6. On the other hand learned District Attorney has submitted that this was not a case of corruption, but it was in fact a case of smuggling of articles into the Jail premises, therefore, the argument of the learned counsel for the appellant that this was a case of corruption and inquiry was a must, is misconceived. With regard to the plea that the appellant was not heard at all, the learned District Attorney has strongly controverted the same while referring the record of this case that despite he was given a number of chances and was asked from time to time that competent Authority would like to hear him in person, he did not like to avail the said remedy and thus it cannot be stated that he has been condemned without being heard. He also referred to an incident which occurred in Central Jail, Kot Lakhpat Lahore, where he was caught red-handed of smuggling unauthorised articles into Jail on 8-12-1980, and was punished with stoppage of increment for one year. This fact, he has submitted with reference to the record so available with the Department.
7. We have taken into consideration the arguments so advanced by the parties and find that this was not the case of corruption as argued by the learned counsel for the appellant but it was a case in which certain articles and money was smuggled by the appellant in order to facilitate the escape of dangerous prisoners. A preliminary enquiry was conducted into this case, in which statements of various witnesses were recorded and the appellant was duly associated with the same. In view of the above we do not find any prejudice has been caused in the case of the appellant as he fully knew the charges so levelled against him and was aware of the same, which was legally recorded by the Enquiry Officer at the stage of preliminary hearing. The appellant was called upon from time to time to explain his conduct but he never expressed any desire to be heard in person or replied to the charge-sheet or to the show-cause notice, which clearly shows that the appellant was not anxious to avail this remedy. We cannot also remain oblivious of the fact that the appellant was entrusted with the duty of guarding of prisoners and being a member of disciplined force instead of doing his duty honestly, he rather became carrier of sum of Rs,2,000 and delivered it to one of the dangerous prisoners and thus was a participant of conspiracy, which if successful would have resulted into serious consequences. We have also satisfied ourselves that the appellant has been given full chance to defend himself in this case and there was ample evidence on the record to show that he was fully involved into the charges so levelled.
8. In the light of the above, we do not find any merit in this appeal which is dismissed accordingly.
However, there will be no order as to costs.