JUDGMENT :

Heard Mr. A.C. Borbora, learned senior counsel for the petitioner and Mr. P.K. Roy, learned senior counsel for the respondents in the FCI.

2. The petitioner who was appointed as a Manager (Accounts) as per the order of appointment dated 13.02.2012 in the respondent FCI was transferred as Manager (Accounts) to the FCI District Office at Banderdewa where he joined on 03.02.2015 and continued up to 31.03.2016. By the order dated 05.10.2016 of the Executive Director (NE) of the respondent FCI, the petitioner was placed under suspension with reference to a memorandum for major penalty dated 27.09.2016 for the acts of commission and omission as provided in the memorandum. The petitioner was also served a memorandum (UR-58) dated 27.09.2016 wherein he was at Sl. No. 2 of the list of charged officials provided in the memorandum. The memorandum provided that the substance of the imputations of misconduct or misbehaviour for the purpose of the enquiry to be held was set out in the statement of charge which was enclosed as Annexure I to the memorandum. The memorandum also refers to a statement of imputation of misconduct in support of each of the articles of charge which was enclosed as Annexure II and further a list of documents and witnesses were also enclosed as Annexures III and IV.

3. The Annexure I statement of articles of charges contained thirteen articles. Article I was in respect of payment of advance by providing that during the course of a special audit investigation, it was found that advance payments were made by signing a cash voucher for the year 2014-15 without mentioning any date and also without any supporting documents. Article II pertained to non-compliance of ED (NE) advisory note and ignoring CAG observations wherein it was provided that there was a CAG observation that such advances be not paid under any circumstance to the handling and transport contractors in future. Article III pertained to the passing of bills based on fictitious work slips/work done certificates by referring to an investigation report which indicated that advance payments were released to the contractors without any bill and after that fictitious bills were sanctioned based on false work and while the bills were passed, the guidelines/SOP provided for the purpose were violated. The Article further provided that it was the duty of the accounts section to verify the quantity of the bills with the stock accounts for the particular month. Article IV pertained to payment of higher claim of handling bills without verification of facts as no approval was recorded for re-stacking or re-filing of books wherein it is provided that no approval was given for restacking in the depots namely Anini, Roing, Kharsang, Deomali, Daporijo and Tezu. Article V pertained to adopting of different methodology for bill payment and provided that the officers/officials at FCI District Office at Banderdewa were well aware of the normal SOP and guidelines for processing and passing handling bills of contractors but while processing the bills of M/s Seyee Doyni Enterprises, there was a deviation from the normal procedure. Article VI pertained to payment of disproportionate handling claims with that of EPF deposit slips which provided that a test check of few EPF challans enclosed with some of the bills clearly contradicts the claim of the contractor of higher volume of operation. Article VII pertained to the late entries in the FAP and miscalculation of advance payment in FAP i.e. Books Of Accounts and provides that the accounts division of District Office at Banderdewa took the advance payments made to M/s Seyee Doyni Enterprises under the advance head instead of putting it under the handling expense head. Article VIII pertained to non-proportion of reconciliation statement and non-maintenance of essential accounts with division records wherein it was provided that the officials at FCI District Office at Banderdewa did not prepare any Bank Reconciliation Statement