Violation of natural justice and the entitlement to back wages in employment disputes.

M.L. MEHTA, J.

1. This writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been filed by the petitioner against the order dated 12th January, 1990 of the respondent herein, whereby the appeal of the petitioner against the Order of Removal from service dated 26.6.1990 was rejected.

2. The petitioner has been in the employment of the respondent since 03rd March, 1982 as a Driver. After completion of probationary period satisfactorily, he was employed in permanent capacity of the respondent. On 11th December, 1987, he was charged for misconduct. The statement of Articles of Charge in brief is as under:

(a) That on 27th November, 1987, the petitioner along with an outsider entered in the ‘N’ Block office of the respondent with a bottle of whisky and he started drinking there and misbehaved with the staff posted at the ‘N’ Block office and thus, the petitioner indulged into an act unbecoming of a Government servant.

(b) At the aforesaid time and place, the outsider asked one of the persons on cash duty to fetch a glass of water. On refusing to do so, both the petitioner and his outsider friend used unparliamentary language. They also asked one Mahesh Kumar Arora, Casher to bring the glass of water for them and on his refusing, insulted him.

3. The petitioner submitted his reply dated 24th December, 1987 to the aforesaid charges whereby he categorically denied the allegations and alleged to have been falsely implicated because of his trade union activities. It is alleged that the petitioner requested for being allowed to be assisted by an Advocate during the enquiry proceedings and also to supply the copies of the documents demanded by him. However, his request was declined by the respondent. On 26th June, 1989, he received the order from the department whereby he was removed from the services with immediate effect. He preferred an appeal against the said order to the Chairman of the respondent and since he did not receive any reply, he made representation dated 17th September, 1991 to the respondent requesting his reinstatement and full back wages and continuance of service and that too also remained unresponded.

4. The impugned order is alleged to be illegal, arbitrary, discriminatory and violative of principle of natural justice. The main grounds which have been taken in assailing the orders are (1) that he was not permitted to be represented by an Advocate; (2) that the Presenting Officer as well as the Enquiry Officer cross examined the witnesses in a manner in order to prove the case against the petitioner; (3) he was not permitted to cross examine them nor he was allowed to adduce any evidence in support of his case; (4) the enquiry was bad inasmuch as the Enquiry Officer did not subject the petitioner to liquor test nor the petitioner could be said to be the under influence of liquor on the relevant day and; (5) the extreme punishment of removal from his service was harsh and disproportionate to the gravity of the misconduct and it amounts to victimization.

5. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner centered his arguments on the point that there was no cogent and elaborate evidence against the petitioner to conclusively hold him guilty of misconduct in as much as out of the four witnesses examined by the respondent department, three had not supported the version in support of the charges and the fourth namely Chander Prakash has falsely implicated the petitioner on account of personal enmity. Learned counsel has submitted that the petitioner was not afforded sufficient opportunity to cross examine those witnesses and was not allowed to be assisted by the Advocate. He took me through the testimony of the four star witnesses examined by the department in support of the charge sheet. Though in the present proceedings, that was not required to be seen, but keeping in view the fact that the enquiry has also been assailed on the ground of violation of principle of natural ju