JUDGMENT :

Manish Choudhury, J.

The two writ petitions - W.P.[C] No. 1534/2021 & W.P.[C] No. 1546 - are preferred by the two petitioners separately against the same nature of penalties imposed upon them through two separate orders, that is, F & ESO No. 729 dated 30.03.2019 and F & ESO No. 515 dated 11.03.2019 respectively passed by the respondent No. 2 i.e. the Special Director General of Police-cum-Director, Fire & Emergency Services, Assam.

2. As the issues involved in the two writ petitions are same and the factual matrices are almost same, the two writ petitions are taken up together, at the instance of and agreed to by the learned counsel for the parties at the admission stage.

3. By F & ESO No. 729 dated 30.03.2019, the petitioner in the writ petition, W.P.[C] No. 1534/2021 has been awarded penalty in the form of 631 days Leave Without Pay [LWP] for the period of his absence and suspension w.e.f. 08.07.2017 to 30.03.2019 purportedly under Rule 7 of the Assam Services [Discipline and Appeal] Rules, 1964 ['the 1964 Rules' and/or 'Rules, 1964] and Section 6[2] of the Assam Fire Service Act, 1985 ['the AFS Act, 1985', for short].

3.1. By F & ESO No. 515 dated 11.03.2019, the petitione