The main legal point established in the judgment is the necessity of a reasoned order in a quasi-judicial proceeding and the violation of the principle of natural justice in passing the impugned order of punishment.

1. Heard learned counsel for the parties.

2. The prayer of the petitioner in this writ application reads as follows:-

"1 (i) For quashing resolution of the Government of Bihar contained in Memo No. 2/C-3041/2008/9091 dated 25.6.2012 issued under the signature of Joint Secretary, Patna, whereby punishment of censure has been awarded against the petitioner.

(ii) For commanding the respondent no. 4 not to take into account this order of punishment at the time of the consideration of the promotion of petitioner to the cadre of Indian Administrative Service."

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner in support of the aforementioned prayer has submitted that the impugned order of punishment dated 25.6.2012 is factually incorrect and legally unsustainable, inasmuch as, the petitioner, an officer of the Bihar Administrative Service, though has been subjected to minor punishment of censure, the same in effect would deprive him of his due promotion. It has further been stated that the misconduct for which the petitioner was subjected to a proceeding and ultimately inflicted punishment has also been found to non-existing in the order of this Court dated 17.8.2012 in CWJC No. 14688 of 2007. A further grievance has been made that in the proceeding, the petitioner was not supplied with the relevant documents as required under Rule 19 of the Bihar Government Servants (Classification, Control & Appeal) Rules, 2005 (hereinafter to be referred to as "the Rules").

4. Per contra, learned counsel for the State has supported the impugned order of punishment and in this regard, he has pointed out that the petitioner, while functioning as a returning officer relating to election of the ward councilor of the District Board in Panchayat Election held in the year 2006, had committed irregularities in declaration of the result of the election for which he was given adequate opportunity in terms of Rule 19 of the Rules.

5. The facts which are not in dispute and would be sufficient to dispose of this writ application lie in a very narrow compass. The petitioner, an officer of Bihar Administrative Services was posted as a Sub-Divisional Officer, Nalanda and was made returning officer of 15 territorial constituencies of Zila Parishad Election which included constituency no. 30 in which polling was conducted on 18.5.2006 and counting of the votes was held on 17.6.2006. After conclusion of the counting on 21.6.2006, one Manju. Devi was declared elected from constituency no. 30 of Zila Parishad, Biharsharif who was also issued the certificate of being elected by the petitioner who later on an objection raised by the another candidate, namely, Satyendra Kumar, it was discovered that the result of the winner candidate, namely, Smt. Manju Devi was wrongly declared without taking into account the total number of votes recorded on the both sides of the form-21 containing the details of number votes secured by the candidates.

6. It has to be noted that the petitioner was subjected to a show cause notice in terms of Rule 19 on the following imputation of misconduct as contained in "Prapatra Ka" dated 11.12.2006:-

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