The appellant was appointed as Constable on 1-11-1976. It is submitted in the memorandum of appeal that his mother suddenly fell ill in his native village and there was none else to attend the ailing mother, therefore, the appellant rushed to village after verbal permission from his Incharge. It is submitted that the appellant was served with three notices one after the other and except notice dated 10-10-1985 no notice reached him. It is alleged thereafter, the respondent No.3 dismissed the appellant from service vide order communicated through memo: dated 17-12-1985. The appellant impugned this order through an appeal before the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Lahore Range, Lahore who rejected his appeal vide order communicated through memo: dated 5-4-1986.
The appellant is stated to have filed a revision petition before the Additional Inspector-General of Police, who according to him rejected his appeal vide order dated 9-12-1986 and communicated to him through respondent No.3 through letter dated 16-2-1987, which was received by him on 22-2- 1987. The present appeal was filed by him on 10-3-1987.
2. I have heard the learned counsel for the appellant and gone through the record of the case and find that the appellant was dismissed from service for habitual absence from duty. The period of absence, is reproduced as under:-
(a) Constable Waris Ali No.5890 while posted in Traffic Staff Lahore absented himself without leave or permission from the competent authority on the following different occasions:-
(1) 13/4-4-1985 to/18-4-1985 13 days and 20 hours (2) 7/19-4-1985 to 30/12-5-1985 23 days and 10 hours (3) 9/19-5-1985 to 11/29-5-1985 10 days and one hour.
(b) Const: Waris Ali No.5890 while posted at the District Police Lines, Lahore absented himself without leave or permission from the competent authority vide DD report No.75 dated 2-9-1985 w.e.f. 4-8-1985.
He reported back on 23-4-1985 vide DD report No.83 after an absence of 1 month, 18 days, 11 hours and 40 minutes.
(c) Constable Waris Ali No.5890 while posted in Reserve No.37 "B" Company District Police Line, Lahore absented himself without leave or permission from the competent authority vide DD report No.28 dated 16-10-1985. He is still at large and there is no intimation from his side.
It is submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant that the absence was not deliberate one. I have checked up the record and it is clearly from the order of the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Lahore Range that the total period of absence comes to 157 days whereas the explanation rendered by the appellant covers period of about 10 days when according to him his mother fell ill and subsequently died. There is no force in this arguments. It is next contended that the appellant has unblemished record of Service. The argument is fallacious and without any merits in it as according to the order of the respondent No.2, the appellant had suffered 20 adverse entries in 9 years service. The Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Lahore Range, Lahore further noted that upto the date of dismissal the appellant had 20 adverse entries to his credit in the service record and the total period of absence was accounted 157 days. The appellant has failed to controvert the allegations against him and he has only tried to explain his absence in December 1985 while according to him was on account of illness of his mother, who subsequently died on 14-12-1985.
This way the authority had no choice but to dismiss the appellant from service.
3. There is yet another aspect of the matter, the appeal of the appellant is time barred. The order of the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Lahore Range is dated 5-4-1986 and the appellant is said td have filed the appeal with the Inspector-General of Police, Punjab thereafter. I am informed that his appeal was filed by the appellant within one month of the order of the D.I.-G. Lahore Range. This means that the appellant should have filed the present appeal somewhere in September 1986 after 90 days of petition to I.-G. (Police) and within next 30 days as per proviso (a) of Section 4 of the Punjab Service Tribunals Act 1974, while this appeal has already noted was filed on 16-3-1987.
There is no application for condonation of delay.
4. The up-shot of this discussion is that there is absolutely no merit in the appeal and the order of dismissal of the appellant from service is perfectly legal and in fact Department had no choice but to dismiss him from service The appeal is dismissed on merit as well as time-barred.
A.A.125/Sr.P.