S. ABDUL JABBAR KHAN (CHAIRMAN). --Malik Muhammad Akram, ex-Foodgrain Supervisor Bahawalpur Region, has filed this appeal under section 4 of the Punjab Service Tribunal Act, 1974, in which he has impleaded the Province of the Punjab through the Director Food Department, Government of the Punjab, Lahore, and the Deputy Director, Food Department, Bahawalpur Region, Bahawalpur, as respondents.
2. By virtue of this appeal he has prayed that the impugned orders, dated 19-2-1985, received by the appellant on 29-2-1985, whereby the appellant has been dismissed from service from 10-5- 1983, be set aside and he be re-instated in service with all back benefits.
3. Brief facts of the case are that the appellant was Incharge of 3,987.815 M.Tons wheat lying in Ahmadpur East concerning to his centre Shahiwala and stored in 20 Open Gunjies. The appellant was however, involved in a criminal case and was sentenced by the Military Court, to one year R.I.
When the appellant came back he was asked to take over the charge of the said wheat and dispose it as much quantity as he could do. After the disposal of the said wheat it was found that 150.860 M.Tons was short and 121.695 M/Tons was found rotten and 314.260 Tons was found as residue (not fit for consumption). The appellant was taken to task for this shortage and was dismissed on account of conviction and was imposed with g recovery of Rs.9,07,147.20. For the said loss. The entire penalty only covers the loss or residue as well as the rotten wheat. An enquiry into the affair was conducted by the Department under the orders of the Deputy Director Food, Bahawalpur Region, who reported that due to the absence of the appellant and due to lack of proper care of the wheat stock lying in open in the shape of Gunjies outside the store, the wheat was damaged and loss was beyond the control of the appellant and recommended that storage shortage weighing 150.860 Tons discovered at the final clearance of the stocks may be written of in full as the shortage in question had occurred due to infestation which was beyond human control and the decision for the remaining quantity of damaged wheat 121.695 and residue 314.260 Tons be taken in accordance with Government directions. The appellant was dismissed from service with effect from 10-5-1983, by order of respondent No.2, dated 19-2-1985. His appeal against the said order was rejected. Hence, this appeal.
4. We have heard the learned counsel for the appellant as well as learned Deputy District Attorney assisted by the representative of the Department and have perused the record of this case very carefully with their assistance.
5. Learned counsel for the appellant has argued that in the departmental inquiry, the Enquiry Officer has exonerated the appellant and has not held him liable for the loss and shortage due to the reasons explained in his report. According to learned counsel respondent No.2 was not within his right to ignore the said report as he has failed to give any reason for his disagreement with the said recommendations, therefore, the order passed against the appellant would not be justified. It has been further reported that the entire wheat stock which has been damaged was beyond the control of the appellant, firstly, that he was in Jail for a period of one year and the wheat was stored in open Gunjies where the wheat was damaged due to infestation and other natural elements. It has been vehemently argued that when the Department has itself declared that the damaged wheat and residue was unfit for human consumption, there was no reason to hold the appellant guilty for the said loss, as it is established on record, that he was in jail during all this period and if at all this stock is to be taken care of, it shall have been taken care of by the District Food Controller and the staff under him.
6. On the other hand learned Deputy District Attorney has adopted the comments of the Department and has submitted that once a person has been convicted by Military Court and even he was subsequently pardoned, he could not be re-instated in service. With regard to loss or damage/loss of stock of wheat, while admitting the fact that the appellant was in jail for a period of one year, he has submitted that once he was released from jail it was his duty to clear the stock and as he failed to do so, the imposition of recovery was justified.
7. We have given our anxious thought to the arguments advanced by the parties and perusal of judgment/order of Ch. Muhammad Amin, Deputy Director Food, Bahawalpur Region, Bahawalpur, reveals that he has dismissed the appellant on account of his conviction by the Summary Military Court. With regard to the imposition of recovery of Rs.9,07,147.20, the only argument advanced by the Deputy Director Food, is that he was Incharge of the Centre prior to his conviction, therefore, he would be responsible for this loss/damage of stock. We further find that the Deputy Director Food has not taken into consideration the report of the Enquiry Officer placed at Annexure 'C' while admitting that regular enquiry was held in this case and District Food Controller, Bahawalpur, was appointed as Authorised Officer and his recommendation was received by him, but he has failed to mention as to what were the recommendations made by him whereas the appellant from the very outset has come out with the plea that he was fully exonerated in the departmental proceedings by the District Food Controller. This Tribunal while confronted with this situation, summoned the concerned officers /officials and in consequence of the said summon, Mr. Abdul Qayyum, the then District Food Controller, Bahawalpur, Mian Jamil Hussain, District Food Controller, Mr. Zia Ahmad, Assistant Food Controller, appeared before this Tribunal. The file of the case was also retained as to see what efforts were made to clear/dispose of the wheat stock after the arrest of the appellant and his subsequent conviction in some criminal case by the Summary Military Court. It has been verified by Mian Jamil Hussain, who acted as Authorised Officer, that he did recommend the writing of the entire loss as, in his opinion, the appellant could not be held guilty/ responsible for the same as the loss had occurred when he was in Jail. When this Tribunal called upon them to explain as to what arrangements were made to take over the huge stock of wheat, which was lying unattended when the appellant was in Jail, they came out with a file to show that lot of correspondence was made and the Illaqa Magistrate was requested to help them for making the inventory of said stock.
The entire plea of these three officers who appeared before this Tribunal was that due to non- cooperation of the said Illaqa Magistrate and local administration, they failed to take over the stock in their possession and thus full one year was wasted in unnecessary correspondence between the Food Department and the local administration. They have further conceded that it was only after the appellant was released from Jail that he was asked to dispose of the stock and declare what was left behind.
8. This Tribunal is appalled to know the situation and take notice of apathy and callousness of those officers who did not move their little finger to take actual possession of the stock, into safe custody, which was worth millions of rupees or to remove it to a safer place, where it could have been saved from rains, infestation due to Susri and Khapra. We wonder what was in their way to ask the senior officers of their own Department, like District Food Controller to conduct the weighment in his presence, if they were afraid, that actual weighment may be less than the actual weight so stocked. Their plea of regular correspondence with the local administration is nothing but an apology of plea and clearly reveals the working of the Food Department, which by any standard cannot be considered judicious and honest. This loss of Rs.9,07,147.20, which has occurred due to shortage, infestation damage and residue (wheat unfit for human consumption), is nothing but doing of their own and the learned Deputy Director Food, without giving any cogent reasons found it very convenient to make the appellant as scapegoat and by simply giving him a bad name, has condemned him. He has bypassed the recommendations of the District Food Controller (Authorised Officer), which clearly indicate and rightly so, that appellant can hardly be considered responsible for his loss, as he was physically removed from the said site due to involvement in some other criminal case and ultimately sentenced by the Summary Military Court to one year R.I.
This Tribunal is often called upon to adjudicate large number of Food cases wherein situation is more or less identical. This Tribunal has no alternative but mostly to remand the cases back to the Authority with the directions to hold regular enquiry and fix the responsibilities according to law on the delinquents and not to make arbitrary assessment of loss/recovery penalties by omni-bus order. It is also found that when some sort of inquiry is done at the level of District Food Controller and the said District Food Controller makes recommendation by writing of loss, for not holding the accused official, responsible, by coming to the conclusion that the circumstances were beyond his control, the Authority very conveniently brushes aside the said recommendation and according to the limits of financial powers, writes of amount and for the remaining amount, makes the said civil servant responsible, where he fails to give any cogent reason for the same. This sort of casual treatment with the rights of the civil servants, results into unnecessary litigation, as the only alternative with the civil servants left is to knock at the doors of the Punjab Service Tribunal. Another common feature which this Tribunal has come across in deciding scores of cases of this Department is that in the first instance huge quantity of wheat is purchased indiscriminately without making necessary arrangements for its safe storage or assessing the existing available storage capacity and later on ignore the requests of the Foodgrains Supervisor/ Incharge of the said valuable stock to remove/allocate the same to the required places of consumption and ultimately when the said storage is damaged due to heavy rains, infestation of Khapra and Susri, they find it very convenient, to lay the responsibility on the shoulders of the said Foodgrains Supervisor/Inspector/Assistant Food Controller, who are low paid officials, and thus absolve themselves from the responsibilities of this national loss, which is usually occurring in this Department. This Tribunal is of the considered opinion that this case be brought to the notice of the Chief Minister, Minister for Food, and Secretary Food, Punjab, so that it should be known to them, what is happening in this Department and how this Tribunal is faced to solve these problems both in accordance with law and equity as well as facts of the case so come before it.
9. In the present case of Malik Muhammad Akram, it is established fact that he was undoubtedly incharge of 3,987.815 M.Tons of wheat, which was purchased by the Department and also it is an established fact on record that this wheat was stored in open Gunjies. This Department could not deny that this appellant was convicted by the Summary Military Court in some other criminal case and thus was no more Incharge of the said wheat while he was in jail. This being the situation known to the Department, what the Department, did in this case was, that they did not touch this huge quantity of wheat worth millions of rupees, and only started writing letters to the local civil administration to come to their rescue, as they feared that if they weigh the wheat, they would be held guilty of misappropriation etc. Despite the fact (according to them) that local civil administration was not cooperating in this matter, and despite knowledge of this so called non- cooperation from the local civil administration, the fact remains that none of the senior officers of the Department, cared to act at his own and to take possession of wheat and get it weighed or removed to safer places to protect it from further damages. The file which was handed over to this Tribunal only shows that no physical efforts were made to save the national wealth except writing of letters from time to time, just to fill up the blank.
10. In view of the above detailed analysis of the case, this Tribunal cannot hold Malik Muhammad Akram, appellant, responsible to make good the loss as he was in Jail during the said period and his immediate officer viz. District Food Controller (Authorised Officer) exonerated him from this responsibility, which was of course justified in his recommendations, as any body who is not present on the spot and has been removed to a place (Jail) from where he cannot exercise any control on the said wheat, cannot be held guilty in any manner whatsoever.
11. The result is that as far as the imposition of penalty of recovery of Rs.907,147.20, the impugned order is set aside. However, with regard to the dismissal from service, it is pointed out that a Government servant, once he is convicted for any criminal offence, the Authority is within his rights, to award one of the penalties under Rule 9 of the Punjab Civil Servant. (Efficiency and Discipline)
Rules, 1975, after giving him show-cause notice, after the said Rule 9 has been so amended on the verdict of this Tribunal. The penalty of dismissal imposed upon the appellant is also set aside with the direction that the Authority will issue a show-cause notice under Rule 9 of the E&D Rules, and then to take any action, which it deems fit. The appellant will be re-instated in service in order to clothe him with the status of a civil servant for taking action under the Punjab Civil Servants (E&D)
Rules, 1975. There will be no order as to costs.
A.E./112/Sr.P