The petitioner was given a fair opportunity to show cause and had admitted to the charges of unauthorised absence. The delay in approaching the court after the service termination disentitled the petitioner for any relief.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Writ Petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying to issue a Writ of Certiorarified Mandamus calling for the records relating to the second respondent herein in Proc.No.M1/HR/DAC/278- 214/2010 dated 03.08.2011 awarding the punishment removal from service and the consequential order passed in appeal by the first respondent herein in Proc.No.M1/HR/DAC/278-214/2010 dated 12.10.2011 and quash the same and consequently direct the respondents to re-instate the petitioner in service with all attendant benefits.)

1. The Writ Petitioner seeks issuance of a Writ of Certiorarified Mandamus to quash the proceedings dated 03.08.2011, removing the petitioner from service and the consequential order in appeal on the file of the 2nd respondent/1st respondent in proceedings dated 12.10.2011 and to consequently direct reinstatement of the petitioner in service, with all attendant benefits.

2. The case of the petitioner as projected in the affidavit in support of the Writ petition is that, he joined the respondent Corporation as IWD-Grade- II on 08.01.1997 on compassionate appointment basis. Subsequently, he was promoted to the post of IW D-Grade-I after satisfactory services rendered for six years. While he was in service, the 2nd respondent served a charge memo dated 20.11.2010 for unauthorised absence from duty for the period 28.10.2010 to 09.11.2010. An enquiry officer was appointed, who held the charges proved vide his enquiry report dated 21.03.2011. In pursuance thereof, the 2nd respondent issued a show cause notice dated 06.05.2011 for which the petitioner gave his explanation on 31.05.2011 citing family circumstances, ill-health of the petitioner and his wife as legitimate reasons for not attending duty regularly. The petitioner also assured that he would not commit such mistake in future. Considering his explanation, the petitioner was permitted to attend duty and no further steps were taken in furtherance of the show cause notice. However again from 01.06.2011 to 31.07.2011 the petitioner did not attend duty owing to his ill-health. This conduct was viewed as misconduct and the 2nd respondent passed the impugned order, removing the petitioner from service. The appeal filed by the petitioner to the 1st respondent was dismissed on 12.10.2011.Challenging these proceedings, the petitioner has approached this court.

3. The respondents have filed a counter stating that the impugned order was passed on 12.10.2011 and the petitioner has chosen to file the present writ petition only in 2016. Therefore, the Writ petition is liable to be dismissed on the ground of laches. It is the further case of the respondent that the petitioner was irregular right from the beginning and for the very same act of misconduct, namely unauthorised absence from duty, the petitioner was issued charge memos and he was awarded punishment several times, despite which he did not correct himself. While so, when the petitioner was again unauthorisedly absent from duty from 28.10.2010 to 09.11.2010, viewing it as a serious misconduct,a charge memo was issued to him on 03.08.2011. The petitioner did not give any reply to the said charge memo. Thereafter an enquiry was duly held and the charges levelled against the petitioner were found to be true/proved. However, on humanitarian grounds, considering the undertaking of the petitioner that he would not commit such acts in future, the Disciplinary Authority did not pass any final orders immediately and it was decided to observe the conduct of the petitioner. However according to the respondents, even thereafter the petitioner was again intermittently absent from duty for 20 days between 01.06.2011 to 13.07.2011. Having no other option, the Disciplinary Authority proceeded to impose the punishment of removal from service on 03.08.2011. The various instances where the petitioner was censured or punished with stoppage of increment of reduction of pay on one stage or stoppage of one incremen