' MAMOON KAZI, J.---This appeal, by leave of the Court, calls into question the judgment of the Federal Service Tribunal, dated 6-4-1993,. Dismissing the appellant's appeal.
2. The facts of the case are that, the appellant while being posted as Budget and Accounts Officer, was charged by the General 'Manager Finance (Power), Wapda House, Lahore, as under:-- "1. While posted as Budget and Accounts Officer from 11-2-1988 to 5-11-1989 in the office of Manager Finance (T&Gs) you indulged in exertion of extra departmental influence and pressure of Chairman WAPDA and managed for posting in the office of your choice i.e, P.D.-(CGS), Rawalpindi (from where you were earlier removed from service under section 17-1A in violation of the provisions of Chairman WAPDA's Office Memorandum No,C/83/AD(Sectt:)/79/78968-79117 dated 6-10-1983 read with rule 2.5 (XII) of WAPDA Employees' Efficiency and Discipline Rules 1978 which come within the purview of misconduct under Efficiency and Discipline Rules.
3. While posted as Budget and Accounts Officer in the office of P.D. (GSC) WAPDA Rawalpindi from November, 1989 to July, 1990, you have been demanding and receiving advance commission from contractors in the works involving tenders and quotation at the rate of 3/1-2 and 7% respectively and virtually no contractors bill could be passed by you unless the commission was paid to you by Contractors M/s. Zafar Ali of International Masters Group, Ch. Khalid Latif of Gree-Land Contractors, Sarfraz Khan of DIR Construction Co. Raja Muhammad Farooq of Farooq Traders and Muhammad Hayat Yaqub of M/s Hammer Engineers including complainant Mr. Muhammad Jahangir, President Contractors Association Rawalpindi as established during the preliminary inquiry."
4.On denial of the aforesaid charges by the appellant, an inquiry was conducted against him by the Acting Director Inquiries, who exonerated him of the first charge but found him guilty of the second charge. The appellant was served with a show-cause notice, dated 6-1-1992, alongwith a copy of inquiry report. He submitted his reply which was not found satisfactory and consequently, the appellant was reverted from the post of Budget and Accounts Officers to that of Assistant Budget and Accounts Officer for three years, vide order dated 28-5-1992.
5. The appellant first filed a departmental appeal and he subsequently tiled his appeal before the Tribunal on 24-8-1992. In the meanwhile his departmental appeal was dismissed by the appellate authority which fact was communicated to him vide letter dated 13-10-1992.
6. The Tribunal, dismissed the appellant's appeal, as it found that there was no defect in the departmental proceedings held against the appellant and the second charge had also been proved against him. So far as the award of penalty to the appellant was concerned, the Tribunal held that the appellant had already been dealt with leniently because the charges established against him could even entail his dismissal from service.
7. Leave was granted to the appellant by this Court to consider the contentions raised by the appellant's counsel, which find mention in paragrapgh 3 of the leave granting order reproduced below:--- "3. The learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the learned Tribunal has not applied its mind to the facts of the case; that the report of the Inquiry Officer, that P.W. Muhammad Hayat Yaqoob and P.W. Sarfraz Khan are independent witnesses, is not correct, as both these witnesses were also contractors and directly interested in levelling allegations against the petitioners. There is no direct evidence of receiving bribe from the contractors, and there is no allegation that the petitioner is reported to be corrupt."
7. During arguments, learned counsel for the appellant first contended that the learned Tribunal had failed to arrive at the conclusion independently and it mainly relied upon the findings of the Inquiry Officer. According to the learned counsel, neither copies of report of preliminary inquiry nor statements of the witnesses recorded at the inquiry were supplied to the appellant, which had caused serious prejudice to the appellant. According to him, the findings of the Inquiry Officer that P.Ws., Muhammad Hayat Yaqoob and Sarfraz Khan were independent witnesses, were also not correct as both the witnesses were contractors and they were directly interested in leveling allegations against the appellant. We, however, find no force in any of the aforesaid contentions. In case the appellant had any genuine grievance relating to the said copies of the preliminary inquiry report or the statements of witnesses, such grievance could have been raised by the appellant in his memorandum of appeal filed before the Tribunal. We have perused copy of such memorandum which has been placed on the file of this Court by the appellant but nothing can be spelt out therefrom to indicate that such a grievance had been raised by the appellant before the Tribunal. No doubt, in paragraph (b) of the grounds in his memorandum of appeal, the appellant had raised a grievance that "requisite documents" had not been supplied to him but apart from such vague allegation, such grounds were not specifically taken by the appellant before the Tribunal.
8. Support has been sought by the learned counsel from the case of Muhammad Umar Malik v.
Federal Service Tribunal (PLD 1987 SC 166), wherein it was observed that all material taken into consideration by the departmental authorities should ordinarily be made available to the Tribunal instead of leaving it to wade through Manual of Instructions and memoranda issued from time to time to which neither Tribunal nor parties or their counsel have ready access. But these observations can hardly be called in aid in the circumstances of the present case. If there was any defect left in the inquiry conducted against the appellant, it was duty of the appellant to himself invite the Tribunal's attention thereto. But the Tribunal was not expected to take suo motu notice of any such thing, unless pointed out by the appellant himself. Reliance has also been placed by the appellant's counsel on Muhammad Ibrahim Khan v. Secretary, Ministry of Labour (1984 SCM R 1014) and WAPDA, Lahore v. Manzoor Ahmad Arif (1994 SCM R 1042). In both the cases it was observed that the. Service Tribunal was a final Court of facts and the controversy between the parties must, therefore, be clearly reflected in the judgment of the Service Tribunal. However, the observations made in the two cases are not germane to the question raised by the learned counsel for the appellant before us. Therefore, none of the cases relied upon support the plea raised in this regard by the learned counsel.
9. Learned counsel for the appellant has also failed to place any material before this Court to support his contention that P.Ws., Muhammad Hayat , Yagoob and Sarfraz Khan, whose evidence was recorded by the Inquiry Officer were not independent witnesses. The Inquiry Officer appears to have examined a number of contractors as witnesses at the inquiry, as is clearly reflected in his report and nothing can be spelt out therefrom to indicate that any prejudice had been caused to the appellant. The Tribunal, therefore, appears to have rightly relied upon the conclusions arrived at by the Inquiry Officer.
10. It was next contended by the learned counsel for the appellant that, although the allegations in the charge indicated that the appellant was guilty of misconduct but penalty was imposed on the ground that the appellant was guilty of corruption. According to the learned counsel for the appellant, in any case the charge was defective as there were no allegations to indicate that the appellant was reputed to be corrupt. Reference in this regard was made by the learned counsel to Rule 3 of the Pakistan WAPDA Employees (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 1978, which refers to "Grounds for Penalty" as follows:- "3. Ground for Penalty.
' Where an employee, in the opinion of the competent Authority;
(a) is inefficient or has ceased to be efficient; or
(b) is guilty of misconduct; or
(bb) is guilty of laxity in control over his subordinates, which facilitated or encouraged the commission of misconduct or other offences by them;
(c) is corrupt or may reasonably, be considered corrupt because -
(i) he is, or any of his dependents or any other person through him or on his behalf is in possession (for which he cannot reasonably account) of pecuniary resources or of property disproportionate to his known sources on income; or
(ii) he has assumed a style of living beyond his ostensible means, or
(iii) he has a persistent reputation of being corrupt; or
(d) is engaged, or is reasonably suspected of being engaged in subversive activities, or is reasonably suspected of being associated with others engaged in subversive activities or is guilty of disclosure of official secrets to any unauthorised person and his retention in service is therefore prejudicial to national security.
' The competent Authority may imposed on him one or more penalties. "
11. As is clearly evident from rule 3, clause (c) thereof indicates that where an employee, in the opinion of the competent authority, is corrupt or may reasonably be considered corrupt, the competent Authority may impose on him one or more penalties. Clause (c) appears to be consisting of two parts. Firstly, it refers to a case where an employee is found to be corrupt and secondly, it refers to cases where he may reasonably be considered corrupt. The side rule further indicates the circumstances under which an employee may reasonably be considered corrupt and such circumstances are enumerated in paragraph (i) to (iii) of clause (c) in Rule 3. The contention of the learned counsel that the charge framed against the appellant was defective as there was no allegation against the appellant to indicate that he was reputed to be corrupt is liable to be rejected on the face thereof for the simple reason that the words. "is corrupt" and "may reasonably be considered corrupt," occuring in the rule 3(c), are to be read disjunctively and not conjunctively. This is clearly indicated by the makers of the rule. Therefore, it would only be in a case where, there is no direct evidence of corruption available against an employee but still there is material from which such and inference can be drawn, that resort to paragraphs (i) to (iii) in rule 3(c) may be necessary. In that case, in case of any of the circumstances enumerated in the said paragraphs, charge of corruption can be maintained against an employee. The allegations in the charge clearly indicate that the appellant was proceeded against upon direct evidence of corruption, therefore, it was not necessary for the authority concerned to charge him with allegations of having reputation of being corrupt. So far as the contention that the appellant was only charged with misconduct is concerned, it may be pointed out that the said rules provide for a very comprehensive definition of "misconduct' in rule 2 and use of the word "includes" in the said definition further indicates that the definition of misconduct' is not exhaustive but only enumerative. Therefore, any conduct which was prejudicial to good order which could also include corruption, could form basis for disciplinary action taken against the appellant. Therefore, in any case, no prejudice was caused to the appellant.
' For the aforesaid reasons, the judgment of the Tribunal does not appear to be open to exception.
The appeal, is therefore, dismissed.