SANJAY KISHAN KAUL, J. (ORAL)

1. The petitioner was appointed as Constable with the CRPF on 28th July, 1963. The petitioner during his tenure of service is stated to have spent about 14 years in the North Eastern States of Nagaland and Manipur. The trouble for the petitioner began when he was suspended on 12th December, 1978 under Rule 10(1) of the CCS(CCA) Rules, 1965 (hereinafter referred to as the said CCS Rules) pending disciplinary action under Section 11(1) of the CRPF Act, 1949 (hereinafter referred to as the said Act). The disciplinary proceedings culminated in an order of dismissal of service of the petitioner dated 21st March, 1979. The appeal preferred by the petitioner before the competent authorities was dismissed on 30th May, 1979. The petitioner thereafter filed the present petition. The petitioners case has unfortunately been pending for disposal since a long period of time. It has only now come up for final disposal.

2. The charge against the petitioner is that he refused to accept the movement order dated 9th December, 1978 to move to a platoon of the CRPF at Tezu and thus committed an act of disobedience in the said process.

3. It is not necessary to go into the details of the fact finding by the enquiry officer as confirmed by the disciplinary authority and the appellate authority for the reason that this Court does not sit as a court of appeal to re-appreciate the material on record. Suffice to say that the petitioner has some grievance even about the enquiry officer as he imputed bias. The reason for the same is stated to be some past litigation initiated by the petitioner along with certain other personnel for benefits under the Third Pay Commission.

4. We have put it to learned senior counsel for the petitioner that his submissions must confine to parameters of judicial scrutiny of such a findings of the enquiry report and thus learned counsel fairly conscentrated only on two aspects to point out procedural infirmities in the proceedings which would require the proceedings to be set at naught.

5. The first grievance is that before proceeding against the petitioner by way a disciplinary enquiry, a preliminary enquiry was held. The statements of the witnesses were recorded in the preliminary enquiry and those statements were not available to the petitioner despite repeated requests. The petitioner thus claims that he was handicapped in the cross-examination of witnesses of the department and that is why he did not actually cross-examine the witnesses. It is, however, not in dispute that at the request of the petitioner inspection was given of such depositions before the preliminary enquiry. The factual matrix shows that in the departmental enquiry the witnesses of the department were examined on 3rd and 4th of January, 1979. Inspection of the statements recorded in the preliminary enquiry was given to the petitioner on 5th January, 1979 and the witnesses were again recalled for cross-examination on 6th January, 1979 but the petitioner failed to cross-examine the witness.

6. Learned senior counsel for the petitioner has referred to the judgment of the Supreme Court in the State of Punjab Vs. Bhagat Ram [(1975) 1 SCC 155] to contend that the supply of such statements in the preliminary enquiry was a mandatory requirement and thus non-supply would vitiate the disciplinary proceedings. Learned senior counsel in this behalf has referred to the facts of the said case where the statements recorded by the Police in the course of investigation of witnesses to be examined in the departmental enquiry were not supplied by the State but only synopsis were given. This was held not to be a reasonable opportunity. It was observed in para 7 as under:

7. The meaning of a reasonable opportunity of showing cause against the action proposed to be taken is that the Government servant is afforded a reasonable opportunity to defend himself against charges on which enquiry is held. The Government servant should be given an

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