Violation of principles of natural justice and non-compliance with the U.P. Co-operative Societies Employees Services Regulations led to the quashing of the termination order.

( 1 ) THE petitioner committed serious financial irregularities such as embezzlement of funds and interpolation of the records on the basis of which, the petitioner was placed under suspension on 16. 6. 1995. Subsequently, he was issued three chargesheets on 9. 5. 1996, 9. 1. 2002 and 6. 6. 2002. The petitioner did not submit any reply to these chargesheets denying the charges and instead through various letters asked for supplying of certain documents. The petitioner alleged that ultimately he was issued a show cause notice on 6. 5. 2003 and eventually, an order dated 6. 11. 2003 was passed terminating the services of the petitioner. The petitioner alleged that the order of termination was passed in gross violation of the principles of natural justice, inasmuch as, no enquiry was held nor any Inquiry Officer was appointed nor any evidence was led and since the charges was not proved and the petitioner was not given any opportunity of hearing, the impugned order, terminating the services of the petitioner, was violative of principles of natural justice. In support of his submission the petitioner has relied upon the following decisions : i] 1992 [65] FLR 675 uma Shanker Yadav v. The Registrar, Co-operative Societies and Ors. ii] [2000] 1 UPLBEC 541, Subhash Chandra Sharma v. Managing Director and Anr. [iii] [2002] 1 UPLBEC 775, Sukhbir Singh v. S. S. P. , Agra and Ors. [iv] [2003] 2 UPLBEC 1726 asha Ram Verma and Ors. v. State of U. P. and Ors. [v] JT 1995 [8] Secured Creditors 65 b. C. Chaturvedi v. Union of India and Ors. [vi] 2004[l] ESC 615, Gurucharan Singh v. N. T. P. C. Ltd. and Ors.

( 2 ) THE respondents in their counter affidavit have stated that repeated letters were sent to the petitioners to appear before the Investigating Officer and to submit a reply to the aforementioned chargesheets, but despite receiving the letters, the petitioner did not submit any reply and only demanded copies of certain documents. The respondent further submitted that vide letter dated 9. 9. 96, the respondents had directed the petitioner to appear at the Head Office of the Bank and peruse the relevant documents. Similar letters were written on 11. 8. 1997, 9. 11. 1997, 27. 7. 1998 and 6. 4. 2000. Inspite of receiving all the aforesaid letters the petitioner did not appear nor perused the documents and, eventually, a show cause notice dated 6. 5. 2003 was issued directing the petitioner to submit his reply to the chargesheets, which he failed to do so, and thereafter, another show, cause notice was issued on 27. 6. 2003. Since, no reply was submitted nor did the petitioner deny the charges levelled against him, consequently, the disciplinary authority passed an order terminating the services of the petitioner. The learned counsel for the respondent submitted that since the petitioner did not reply to the charge sheets, it was not necessary for the respondents to initiate an oral enquiry and prove the charges, inasmuch as the charges remained unrebutted and therefore, the charges were not required to be proved by an oral enquiry.

( 3 ) HEARD Sri Satish Mandhyan, the learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri O. P. Singh, the learned counsel for the respondents.

( 4 ) IN the present case, U. P. Co-operative Societies Employees Services Regulations, 1975 [ hereinafter referred to as the Regulations ] is applicable to the case of the petitioner. Regulation 84 provides various kinds of penalties that can be imposed upon an employee. The relevant portion of Regulation 84 are quoted hereunder :

"penalties- (i) Without prejudice to the provisions contained in any other regulation, an employee who commits a breach of duty enjoined upon him or has been convicted for criminal offence or an offence under Section 103 of the Act or does anything prohibited by these regulations shall be liable to be punished by any one of the following penalties : [a] censure, [b] withholding of increment, [c] fine on an employee of Category IV [peon, c