The central legal point established is that dismissal orders must adhere to the principles of natural justice, including providing an opportunity for defense and justifying differences with inquiry officer's findings.

Radha Mohan Prasad, J.

1. In this writ application, petitioner has prayed for quashing of the order contained in Memo No. 221 dated 12.3.1994 (Annexure-14), whereby he has been dismissed from the service by the Disciplinary Authority and also for quashing the appellate order dated 1.8.1994 (Annexure-18) dismissing the appeal preferred by him against the said order and affirming the punishment of dismissal without notice from service.

2. In short, the relevant facts are that the petitioner was appointed on the post of Sub-staff in the Central Bank of India, hereinafter referred to as the Bank after being selected and declared successful by the order of the Chief Manager, Personnel through Memo no.. 4841 dated 31.1.1992 and was asked to report at Purnia Regional Office. After his appointment, he was posted at Sisabari. On 11.9.1992 the petitioner was served with Memo no. 681 dated 28.2.1992, wherein it was alleged that knowingly he made false statement in the documents pertaining to the educational certificate in connection with his employment in the Bank. Pursuant to the said notice, petitioner submitted his written explanation vide An- nexure-3. Thereafter on 8.10.1992 a charge sheet was issued to him wherein it was alleged that he produced School Leaving Certificate issued by Rajkiya Boddh Madhya Vidyalaya, Musalahpur, Patna dated 22.12.1982 which, in fact, was not issued by the said School. Sri P.K. Singh, B.M.R.C, Katihar was appointed Inquiring Officer, who held inquiry and submitted his report on 20th April, 1993 vide Annexure-5. It appears that in course of preliminary enquiry a denial certificate was collected from the Headmaster of the School, and on that basis the inquiry was initiated against the petitioner. From the defence side a con- tradictionary certificate from the Headmaster was produced. The Inquiring Officer on consideration of the said denial certificate and the defence of the petitioner found the defence of the petitioner to be more concrete as search by the Headmaster was done in the register of the year 1978 whereas the petitioner took admission in the year 1979 and the admission number in the admission register was 330/79 instead of 333/78. Thus, it was found by the Inquiring Officer that the very search of T.C. was on a wrong footing, and had the Headmaster made search in the admission register of 1979 for serial no. 333/79, he would have perhaps given some other certificate. The Presenting Officer also did not disagree with the defence representation that the defence document does not bear any lacuna. He also considered the documents in serial from D.E. 1 to D.E. 4 and found that they are very good proof of the charge-sheeted employee taking study at that School. Vide D.E. 1 the Headmaster confirmed that the petitioner had taken studies in his School, D.E. 2 was the progress report of the petitioner as student in the school and it very clearly showed the studies that was taken by the petitioner, D.E. 3 was the bunch of photostat copies of attendance register attested by the Headmaster also showed that the petitioner was a regular student of that School and D.E. 4 was photostat copy of the admission register in regular and authentic form. The Inquiring Officer also found that contradictory letter was written by the Headmaster in the own handwriting and it tallied totally with the denial letter and that the same had explained the previous mistake. Accordingly, he opined that the charge levelled by the Management was not proved. However, the Disciplinary Authority vide order contained in An- nexure-6 differed with the said opinion and held that the charge againsi the petitioner has been proved and he proposed to inflict punishment "Dismissal from service without notice". The petitioner was asked to show cause against the nature of proposed punishment.

The petitioner submitted his explanation vide Annexure-13,which, however, did not find favour with him and finally the impugned order (Annexure-14)