By the Court.—The petitioner has preferred this Writ Petition for issuance of a writ of certiorari to quash the order dated 29th August, 2000, whereby the respondent No. 2, the Managing Director, U.P. Co-operative Federation Ltd. Lucknow has imposed minor punishment of special adverse entry and a recovery of Rs. 3,19,984.99.

2. A brief reference to the factual aspects would suffice.

3. The petitioner was initially appointed as Assistant Clerk in the year 1964 in U.P. Co-operative Federation Ltd., (for short “Federation”). The federation is registered under the U.P. Co-operative Societies Act,1965 (for short “Act, 1965”) and is an apex level society in terms of Section 2 (a-4) of the Act. Its area of operation extends to State of U.P. The Federation has its bye-laws and the employees of the Federation are governed by the Act,1965 and the rules framed thereunder. The State Government in exercise of power under Section 122- A of the Act has constituted U.P. Co-operative Institutional Service Board. The said Service Board has framed the Regulations namely U.P. Co-operative Societies Employees Service Regulations, 1975 (for short “the Regulations,1975”).

4. The petitioner earned his promotion from time to time. He was posted as a District Manager in the P.C.F. Mathura of the Federation from 15.10.1982 to 4.8.1984. The petitioner was subjected to the disciplinary proceedings. The Managing Director of the Federation placed him under suspension vide order dated 8.8.1984 (placed on the record as Annexure-1). The petitioner preferred a writ petition No. 11340 of 1984 to challenge suspension order dated 8th August, 1984. In the said writ petition interim order was passed on 12.11.1984 and suspension order of the petitioner was stayed. The Managing Director appointed an Inquiry Officer on 22nd May, 1985 and a charge-sheet dated 23rd September, 1985 (Annexure-4 to the writ petition) was served on the petitioner. The charge-sheet contained as many as thirteen charges against the petitioner and most of the charges pertain to his negligence, remissness in wheat procurement, as a consequence whereof Federation had to suffer monetary loss. The petitioner’s several decision was alleged to infected with bad motives.

5. Relevant would it be to mention that the State Government had entrusted the Federation to purchase wheat from farmers to strengthen its Price Support Scheme of essential commodities. The Federation was to act as an Agent of the State Government for the purchase of wheat during the Rabi Crop Season 1984-85. The Federation was required to purchase wheat from different regions at its Regional and District Offices of all the districts.

6. In view of our proposed order which we are going to pass, we need not give details of the charges and reply submitted by the petitioner.

7. The petitioner submitted reply to the charge-sheet on 15.12.1985. He denied all the charges made in the charge-sheet. The petitioner had submitted applications (dated 12th August, 1986 and 4th December, 1986) for the change of Inquiry Officer on the ground that the Inquiry Officer himself was involved in approving proprietor of Transport Firm who was alleged to have misappropriated food-grain of Federation, in respect of which inquiry was conducted against petitioner. His applications did not find favour from the authority concerned. The Inquiry Officer submitted report on 10.3.1989 to disciplinary authority,who issued a show-cause notice (Annexure-11 to the writ petition) to petitioner as to why major penalty mentioned in the show-cause notice should not be inflicted upon him.

8. The petitioner submitted reply to the said show-cause notice on 27.11.1986 wherein took a stand that the findings of Inquiry Officer in his report are not supported by any evidence and he was not guilty of the charges. He further stated that none of the charge has been established by documentary evidence much less oral evidence. The Disciplinary Authority was not satisfied with t