JUDGMENT :

Songkhupchung Serto, J.

1. Heard Mr. U.K. Nair, learned Sr. counsel appearing for the petitioner and also heard Mr. D. Doley, learned Government Advocate appearing for the State respondents.

2. While the petitioner was posted at 8th Assam Police Battalion situated at Abhayapuri as ABSI, the respondent No. 4 who was the Commandant of the Battalion, issued an order vide Memo No. Bn.8/Acctt/2014/563-66, dated 26.03.2014 by which 8 (eight) personnel of the battalion including the petitioner were entrusted with the job of preparing the pending D.A arrear bills of the personnel of the battalion for the period 01.01.1998 to 31.05.2001 and 01.07.2002 to 31.05.2005 for which sanctioned was accorded by the Government vide order No. HMA.2/2014/16-A, dated 05.03.2014. As per the order the personnel entrusted with the job mentioned above were directed to work under the supervision of one Sri. Rasaraj Bhattacharjee, Head Assistant of the unit and they were also given the responsibility of scrutinizing the bank account numbers and bill amounts of the personnel including those who have retired from service or transferred from the unit or expired etc.

3. When the process for preparing and disbursement of the arrears of the D.A was going on the Commandant of the Battalion (respondent No. 4) received a complaint on 23.04.2014 which alleged that there was misappropriation of the D.A arrears. Based on the information he issued an order dated 28.04.2014 by which the petitioner and all his colleagues who were entrusted with the responsibilities mentioned above were placed under suspension. After the suspension order was issued the Commandant issued a show cause notice dated 08.08.2014 along with statement of allegations to all of them. In the show cause notice they were also asked to submit their written statements. The charge against the petitioner was as follows;

"The above named team including you, along with ABSI Moyezuddin Mondal and Cook Pradip Kalita entered into a unholy nexus and intentionally had not collected many account numbers of the person who were eligible for the payment and manipulated the records in the hard copy as well as in the soft copy and thereafter, entered therein your personal account number, account numbers of your friends and relatives with an ulterior motive to grab Government money and thereby deprived the genuine employees of this organization/employees transferred to other unit/pensioner from their due.

(2) Again, the Government sanction order against the above estimated bills received by this office on 11.03.2014 but put up the same before the Commandant on 25.03.2014. Hence, you along with others whose names are given above intentionally delayed the matter to grab the D.A Arrear amounts of the person who have either died, retired or transferred from this Battalion or those force personal who had died during service or after retirement.

(3) Moreover, in spite of repeated instruction from this office to collect the bank account numbers of the eligible force personnel of DA Arrear, whose bank account numbers are not available in the office records, you have not sent a single WT Message to the concerned Officers, intentionally so that you along with other to succeed in your evil intention.

(4) Before submission of final bill to the Treasury the undersigned has directed (i) Head Assistant Shri. Rasaraj Bhattarcharjee (U/S) (ii) Shri Suresh Ray (U/S), Sr. Assistant and you to verify the Bank account numbers of the personnel of 8th A.P. Battalion from the records, the bank account of force personnel who have been transferred/retired from this unit from their concerned offices and put up before the undersigned. Shri Suresh Ray (U/S), Sr. Assistant signed each page of the Bank list as verified. After that, a team lead by you entered into a conspiracy to grab the Government money and manipulated documents signed by me including soft copies (C.D) which was dispatched to the Abhayapuri Sub-Treasury and State Bank of India