( 1 ) THE original applicant before the learned Tribunal is the writ petitioner herein. He at all material times was working as a Constable in Delhi Police Force. A complaint was made against him by one Hitesh jain that he together with Constable Manoj Kumar demanded illegal gratification from him while he was travelling on his scooter and ultimately his driving licence was taken out together with a sum of rs. 1050/- from his pocket. A raid was conducted by the Assistant commissioner of Police alongwith Inspector Special Staff/ne and a sum of Rs. 500/- was recovered from him, viz. a part of the amount he had taken from the complainant. A departmental proceeding was -initiated. He was found guilty of the charges levelled against him by the Enquiry officer, whereupon punishment of dismissal from service was awarded. However, so far as Constable Manoj Kumar is concerned he was exonerated from the charges.

( 2 ) PETITIONER preferred an appeal against the said order but the appellate Authority rejected the same.

( 3 ) BEFORE the learned Tribunal a contention was raised that as having regard to the complaint made against him he also has committed a cognizable offence, thus, institution of the departmental proceeding without any order having been passed in terms of Rule 5 of the Delhi police (Punishment and Appeal) Rules (hereinafter referred to as the rules ) was bad in law. As prior to institution of the departmental proceeding, the petitioner had urged, no permission therefor had been accorded by the Additional Commissioner of Police the entire proceeding is vitiated in law. In any event, in his purported permission granted by the Joint Commissioner no reason had been assigned in support thereof and on that ground too the proceeding was vitiated in law.

( 4 ) BEFORE the learned Tribunal a further contention was raised that the report of the Enquiry Officer was perverse. The learned Tribunal in its impugned judgment held: "rule is of preponderance of probability and the Tribunal has to see whether there is some evidence to support the charge. Prom. the perusal of the evidence of the official witnesses, we find that the recovery of the currency notes which were given to the complainant to be handed over to the applicant wee found to be the same identical currency notes and were recovered from the pocket of the applicant. Safeguards have been taken to prepare a recovery memo as well as handing memo of the currency notes which bears signatures of the complainant as well as the police staff. "

( 5 ) RELYING or on the basis of the decision of the Apex Court in kuldeep Singh v. Commissioner of Police and Others reported in JT 1998 (8) sc 603, the learned Tribunal held that it had no power of judicial review for the purpose of reappraisal of the evidence and, thus, interference with the order of punishment is not warranted as there is some evidence in support of the finding of the Enquiry Officer. The learned Tribunal also rejected the other contentions raised on behalf of the writ petitioner.

( 6 ) DRAWING our attention to the evidence on record, Mr. Shyam babu learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner, would contend that, it has not been stated by any of the witnesses that there had been any demand of money by the petitioner which was a sine qua non for proving the charge of corruption and in that view of the matter the report of the Enquiry Officer must be held to be perverse. Learned counsel appears to be correct.

( 7 ) A bare perusal of the order passed by the learned Tribunal would show that it proceeded on the basis that having regard to the fact that recovery of a part of the amount had allegedly been made from the petitioner, enough evidence had been brought on record but thereby the foundational fact i. e. asking for bribe, had not been established.

( 8 ) THE report of the Enquiry Officer, wherein the evidence of pw-1 has been discussed, is as under :-

"pw-1 -. . . . . . . . . . . . ACP Sahib also asked him