The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement to follow the prescribed procedure in departmental enquiries and the inapplicability of delay and laches in challenging a disengagement order.

JUDGMENT :

(Javed Iqbal Wani, J.)

1. The present Letters Patent Appeal has been filed against judgment dated 03.8.2018 (hereinafter referred to as impugned judgment) passed in case titled as “Sharaz Hussain Shah versus State of Jammu and Kashmir and others” being SWP 2905/2016 whereunder the writ petition filed by the appellant herein came to be dismissed.

2. The facts giving rise to the filing of the instant appeal would reveal that the appellant herein got engaged as Special Police Officer (for short SPO) by the respondents in the year 2013 and was allotted belt no. 1353/SPOJ and, thereafter, deployed in District Rajouri vide ZPHQ order no. PS/SPO/AH-Trf/2012/1192-95 dated 5.6.2013 after being relieved from District Jammu vide District Police Headquarter, Jammu no. OSI/RLV/1324951/62/APOJ dated 6.6.2013.

3. The appellant upon reporting for his duties in District Rajouri joined in the office of respondent 3 and came to be allotted belt no. 1134/SPO-R, and consequently directed to report to District Police Lines Rajouri and subsequently attached with respondent 3 and deputed with Deputy Superintendent of Police, DAR as driver, whereafter the appellant came to be deployed with SHO P/S Manjakote as driver.

4. The appellant while working as such came to be disengaged by respondent 3 along with some other police officers/SPOs on the ground of having links with bovine smugglers during their posting at naka points Kaller, Salani Bridge, Khandi Bridge and Darhali Bridge.

5. Aggrieved of his disengagement by the respondents, the petitioner appellant herein filed SWP 2905/2016 supra challenging the said order therein inter alia on the following grounds:

a) That the order impugned have been passed in gross violation of principles of natural justice and brushing aside all the norms and rules enshrined in the act regulating the terms and conditions of the petitioner’s service.

b) That the order impugned on the face of it speaks volumes about the mala fide and arbitrariness on the part of the respondents.

c) That it is worthwhile to mention here that the petitioner was never ever been posted/deployed on the naka points mentioned in the order impugned and remained in active services as driver, which otherwise gives no chance to the petitioner to have any link or conversation with the Bovine Smugglers or to facilitate them.

d) That the petitioner has never been served any show cause notice neither any opportunity of being heard have been granted to the petitioner and the so called enquiry have been conducted at the back of the petitioner, which is gross violation of fundamental rights and specifically of Article 311 of the Constitution of India.

e) That the petitioner was disengaged in the month of January, 2014, but unfortunately and the reasons better known to the respondents, the copy of the order was not provided to the petitioner till November, 2016.

f) That one of the SPO namely Faiz Mohd. No. 746/SPO-R have been re-engaged/re-instated by the petitioner, who as per the enquiry was posted on the Nakas mentioned in the Order impugned.

g) That the respondents seems to have been blowing hot and cold through the same breath and are adopting double yard stick as the respondents have reinstated/re-engaged their blue eyed persons, whereas the petitioner is made to run from pillar to post.

h) That the petitioner made number of requests to the respondents to redress his grievance, but the respondent No. 3 either on one pretext or the other have not paid any heed to the requests of the petitioner, as such, the petitioner is constrained to approach this Hon’ble Court, through the medium of instant writ petition.

i) That the petitioner is an innocent person have never been posted or deployed on the Naka Points mentioned in the order impugned and the call details of the petitioner are also available with the respondents, which transpires nothing about the involvement of the petitioner with the Bone Smugglers.

j) That the order impugned have been pas