' ABDUL HAMID CHAUDHRY (MEMBER-I).--Ahmad Zia Durrani, ex-Registration Clerk, Deputy Commissioner's Office, Sialkot, has filed this appeal under section 4 of the Punjab Service Tribunals Act, 1974, in which he has impleaded the Commissioner, Gujranwala Division, Gujranwala and the Deputy Commissioner, Sialkot, as respondents.
2. By virtue of this appeal, he has prayed that the orders dated 13-5-1984 as well as dated 13-1-1985, passed by the respondents and so impugned in this appeal, be set aside, and appellant he reinstated in service with all hack benefits.
3. Brief facts of the case are that the appellant while working as Registration Clerk in the Office of Deputy Commissioner, Sialkot, a complaint was made by M/s. Rehmat Ullah and Muhammad Hanif sons of Allah Rakha which became a subject-matter of formal inquiry conducted by Additional Deputy Commissioner (G), Sialkot. After a final inquiry so conducted into the matter, a show-cause notice was issued in the name of the appellant that inquiry to the inquiry report, it was found that he did not enter the documents in the Behis prescribed for registration of deeds according to serial number and he did not make entries in Bchi No, 1, Jild No, 1198 in his own hand. He was required to show cause within seven days of the receipt of the notice as to why one of the major penalties, prescribed under the rules, should not he imposed upon him. The appellant submitted a detailed reply, in which he took a stand that he was not the only person working as Registration Clerk but had with him Mr. Saghir Ahmad as Additional Registration Clerk, Fayyaz Shah as Head Registration Clerk. He denied that he was not In charge of Jild No, 1198, therefore, he could not he held guilty of this charge. He further submitted that there was no evidence against him to show that he was the only person who mutilated the entries as copy of said registered deed was not in his own handwriting. In the end it was submitted that the appellant had 28/29 years of service to his credit with unblemished record and even this mutilation of date, did not damage any party in the said case, therefore, he should not be punished for the same. The learned Deputy Commissioner after taking into consideration the reply so submitted before him, wrote a detailed judgment dated 13-5- 1984, and found that the appellant was guilty of mutilation, therefore, no leniency was required in his case and removed the appellant from service. He filed appeal before the Commissioner, Gujranwala Division, in which he highlighted the procedure adopted against him and agitated the merits of the case and pleaded that his appeal he accepted. Learned Commissioner, vide his judgment dated 13-1-1985 upheld the order of the learned Deputy Commissioner and dismissed the appeal as being without any force. It may be useful to mention at this stage that the learned Deputy Commissioner, using his powers under the Registration Act, also corrected the aforesaid entry.
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 submitted on legal plane that the entire proceedings against the appellant were clearly in violation of the Punjab Civil Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 1975. He has elaborated his point by submitting that although the learned Deputy Commissioner had been pleased to direct a formal inquiry yet neither any Authorised Officer was appointed nor any charge sheet was framed and communicated to the appellant. According to the learned counsel for the appellant that even the appointment of the Enquiry Officer was not warranted by Law because it was the function of the Authorised Officer. It has been emphasized that even the show-cause notice issued in the name of the appellant does not mention that the appellant was being proceeded under the Punjab Civil Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 1975.
6. With regard to the merits of the case, it was submitted that there was no dishonest interpolation in the entry of the said sale-deed, it was reiterated that the volume in which this sale-deed was entered, had never been assigned to the appellant. According to the learned counsel for the appellant, the official concerned, Saghir Azam or his brother inadvertently put the month of March with the date instead of April and realizing the mistake, the month was corrected there and then.
This according to him, is borne out from the deeds entered in the same volume at serial Nos. 1364, 1366, 1368. It has been further submitted that the maintenance of Volume No, 1198 was not the responsibility of the appellant. However, it has been argued that with regard to allegation No, 1, there were separate Behis for recording the `Taq' and Tuft' serial Nos. Of the registered documents.
The document in question belonging to tuft', category was, therefore, entered in Volume No, 1198, which was tuft' volume, therefore, the maintenance of continuous serial number was not in fact possible when registered deeds with `Taq' and 'Rift' numbers have to be separately recorded. It was further submitted that even if vicarious liability is imposed upon the appellant that he being incharge of Registration Department it was his duty to see that everything was correct, learned counsel for the appellant has submitted that the facts remained un-controverted that the disputed registered deed was not copied in his hands, thus in no circumstances, he could be considered guilty for the interpolation. In the end, it has been prayed that keeping in view the appellant's long service spreading over 28/29 years with unblemished record, should have been taken into consideration, the penalty imposed upon the appellant was harsh for the same.
7. On the other hand learned District Attorney has adopted the comments of the Department in extenso and has submitted that both the orders of learned Deputy Commissioner as well as of Commissioner, are detailed orders in which all the pros and cons of the case have been taken into consideration, therefore, these are liable to be maintained.
8. We have given our anxious thought to the arguments advanced by the parties and find that the show-cause notice issued to the appellant only pertains to two categories viz.-
(1) "He did not enter the document in the Behi prescribed for registration of deeds according to Serial No,
(2) He did not make entries in Behi No, 1, Jild No, 1198 in his own hands."
It would be pertinent to observe that no charge of interpolation as well as charge of ulterior motives, has been attributed to the appellant, whereas the Enquiry Officer has been dilating on this aspect of the case also. As far as these two charges are concerned, there is not an iota of doubt that these stand proved against the appellant, as it is a fact on record that Behis prescribed for Registration Deeds disclose that these were not maintained according to serial numbers. This fact does not need any inquiry and no scope of arguments is left with regard to this issue, as the very perusal of Behi discloses that the Registered Deeds had not been entered in the same according to serial numbers. With regard to second charge the appellant himself has accepted that the disputed registered deed was not in his hands. During the course of inquiry it was revealed that due to heavy rush of work, the appellant as well as additional registration clerks had employed some persons to copy the registered-deeds in order to dispose of heavy load work. It is also on record that one of them was brother of Saghir Azam, additional Registration Clerk so appointed in the said office. The plea of the appellant that they were forced to adopt this unwarranted procedure due to heavy load of work, as they were being pressed by their superiors to clear the same, therefore, they have no other alternative but to employ some extra hands to expedite the copying of the Registered-Deeds, does not seem justified, as whatever the circumstances may be, it was for them to do the work in their own hands or to ask for extra additional Registration Clerks to Government to do the job and not to hand over such important documents to people alien to the Department.
9. With regard to the legal objection regarding procedure adopted by the Authority in this case, learned Commissioner has taken notice of these points as these were also agitated before him by the learned counsel for the appellant but has not categorically refuted the same. However, this Tribunal has taken note of the same and has no hesitation to repel this argument on the ground that the Authority was within its rights to proceed against the appellant under rule 6(3) of the Punjab Civil Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 1975, when it was satisfied that the appellant was to be proceeded against on the basis of documentary evidence. What we find is that the Authority did adopt this procedure to bypass other inquiry so conducted earlier, treating it as preliminary inquiry, although the said inquiry was a full-fledged inquiry conducted by the A.D.C.(G).
If the learned Deputy Commissioner would have made the said inquiry, as the only basis of his finding, then of course the argument of the learned counsel for the appellant would have carried some basis, but as stated in the earlier part of our judgment, the charges against the appellant were so obvious that it hardly needed any detailed probe into the matter, particularly when the show-cause notice did not mention the charge of interpolation or of ulterior motives against the appellant.
10. As far as the two impugned orders are concerned we are in agreement with the same up to the point that both the charges mentioned in the show-cause notice stand fully proved against the appellant, but do not agree to the extent that there was sufficient evidence on record to show that interpolation was done by the appellant only and the same was done for ulterior motive. The very fact that the appellant did not enter the said deed in his own hands, would go to show that he cannot be considered guilty of interpolation, as there is no evidence on record to show that the said interpolation was done by him in his own hands. With regard to the ulterior motive, there is not an iota of evidence to show that this was done for the same.
11. We are fully satisfied that the appellant stands proved guilty of the two charges mentioned in the show-cause notice, but at the same time are of the considered opinion that the penalty of removal from service so imposed upon the appellant, who has served the Department for full long 27/28 years without any blemish, would certainly be harsh as mentioned earlier, he has not been found guilty of any ulterior motives or of interpolation in the record. What he has done that he has failed to copy the Registered Deed in the Behi according to the serial numbers and the impugned registered deed was not copied in his own hands. For this lapse, it would be sufficient to meet the ends of justice, that he is imposed minor penalty of stoppage of increments for two years without cumulative effect, with censure. Accordingly we accept the appeal, set aside the impugned orders by varying the punishment from removal from service to reinstatement in service, with stoppage of increments for two years without cumulative effect and censure.
' With regard to the period of his remaining out of service, the same will be treated as leave without pay. There will be no order as to costs.