Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, J.—Heard the parties.

2. By way of this writ petition the petitioner assails the order of punishment, dated 15.10.2019, passed by the Director, National Institute of Technology, Patna, whereby he has been removed from the service of Assistant Professor on contract in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences.

3. The brief facts as stated are that the petitioner was appointed as Assistant Professor on contract basis in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of National Institute of Technology, Patna, (hereinafter referred to as, “the NIT”). He was placed in the regular pay scale and he joined on 30th September, 2014. After his joining he attended the International Conference on Well-Being and Human Development and presented paper at Department of Psychology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh (UP) on 24 to 26 November, 2014. The visit was post facto approved and the petitioner thereafter submitted his travel bills on 8th December, 2014.

4. Show cause notice, dated 20th March, 2015, was served upon him alleging certain discrepancies in the bill to which he submitted his reply on 31st March, 2015.

Learned counsel submits that the Board of Governors in an agenda taken in its 27th BoG meeting of NIT resolved to show cause notice to the petitioner as to why disciplinary proceedings including termination from service may not be initiated against him for producing forged tickets.

Learned counsel submits that a decision was already taken to terminate the services and the entire departmental proceedings were mere hoax. It was his case that the bills which he had submitted, contained erroneous PNR numbers which occurred on account of the fact that the travelling agent has sent him duplicate details of his travel which contained erroneous details. He pointed out that it was an admitted position that petitioner was earlier working in Rourkela had travelled with his wife to join at Patna for which he was claiming his T.A. and mistakenly different tickets have been submitted. Similarly it was also an admitted position that the petitioner had been to Aligarh Muslim University for presenting a paper for which he had submitted his travel allowance reimbursement. The tickets were purchased through one travel agent situated at New Delhi and the travel agent had arranged tatkal e-ticket for himself and his wife to travel from Rourkela to Patna and thereafter from Patna to Aligarh. The tatkal e-ticket was arranged by the travel agent and the travelling on tatkal e-ticket was arranged by the travel agent and travelling on tatkal e-ticket containing some discrepancies ought not be treated as misconduct. The claim of reimbursement was admitted to him and it is not a case where the claim was being made relating to inadmissible travel nor it is a case where the petitioner had not travelled.

Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the enquiry was directed to be conducted by one Dr. Rajiv Sinha who could not have conducted enquiry as Dr. Rajiv Sinha was having a personal bias against the petitioner and he was also prejudiced since he was member of the Board of Governors who had taken a decision to conduct a departmental enquiry and issue order of termination.

5. It is submitted that the enquiry officer acted in biased and prejudiced manner during the course of enquiry. It is alleged that in the in the course of enquiry, one prosecution witness Dr. Sunil Kumar Yadav asked the petitioner to show the e-mail through which the travel agent had sent him tickets, the snap shot of which was earlier submitted by the petitioner. The enquiry officer asked the petitioner login e-mail through which the enquiry officer downloaded the PDF format of the tickets and tampered with his e-mail account and deleted the relevant mail in reference to which a detail information/complaint was submitted by the petitioner to the Director of NIT, Patna, on 17.10.2015. The prejudice of enquiry officer has also been alleged to reflected from th