By the Court.—The petitioner, who was an officer of the Revenue Department of the State of U.P., was posted as Consolidation Officer at Muzaffar Nagar and he passed an order on 20.3.1996, under Section 9-A(2) of the U.P. Consolidation of Holdings Act in case No. 3205 of 1990. By this order, the petitioner allowed the claim of objectors in respect of plots No. 2829/0-2-0, 2831/0-6-0 and 2832/3-1-0 of Khata No. 689. The plots were directed to be recorded as bhumidhari with transferable right of the objectors after deleting the entry of Bhatta/State land.

2. The order dated 20.3.1996 has been made the basis for initiation of disciplinary proceedings against the petitioner and ultimately the order impugned dated 9.8.2001 has been passed by the Consolidation Commissioner, State of U.P., against the petitioner, whereby the pension of the petitioner has been deducted/reduced by 25%. The petitioner has challenged the order aforesaid dated 9.8.2001 by filing the present writ petition. This Court, while admitting the present writ petition on 6.2.2012, noticed that the validity of the order in question of the petitioner dated 20.3.1996 is still subjudice before this Court in Writ Petition No. 19728 of 1999, wherein an interim order had already been passed on 13.5.1999, and, therefore, the Writ Petition No. 19728 of 1999 was also directed to be listed alongwith the records of the present case. This Court, therefore, has also perused the records of Writ Petition No. 19728 of 1999.

3. From a perusal of the records of the connected Writ Petition No. 19728 of 1999, it transpires that the order dated 20.3.1996 had been challenged by the Gaon Sahba by filing Appeal No. 233/1998. During the pendency of the appeal, an application appears to have been filed before the District Collector/District Deputy Director of Consolidation, Muzaffar Nagar, wherein the records of the appeal were summoned and in exercise of revisional power under Section 48 of the Act, the District Magistrate/Deputy Director of Consolidation, Muzaffar Nagar has set aside the order dated 20.3.1996 vide order dated 19.2.1999, and the plots in question have been directed to be recorded in the name of State Government/Fire Brigade. The order dated 19.2.1999 has been challenged by the objectors, namely Pradyumn Kumar and others by filing Writ Petition No. 19728 of 1999. An interim order staying the dispossession of the objectors has been passed by this Court and the writ petition has already been admitted on 26.11.2002. Since the validity of the order dated 20.3.1996 passed by the petitioner is still subjudice before this Court, as such this Court refrains from expressing any opinion on the merits of the order dated 20.3.1996, and the discussion of the said order dated 20.3.1996 is limited for the purposes of examining the validity of the disciplinary proceedings which have been initiated against the petitioner.

4. The disciplinary proceedings were initiated against the petitioner, on account of passing of the order dated 20.3.1996 and a charge-sheet dated 7.7.1998 was served upon the petitioner. The two charges levelled against the petitioner were as Under :

(i) The petitioner had illegally passed the order dated 20.3.1996, directing the recording of the names of the occupants, ignoring the fact that in the previous consolidation proceedings the land was recorded as state land and, therefore, passing of such illegal order renders the petitioner’s integrity doubtful.

(ii) After amendment in Section 210 of U.P.Z.A. & L.R. Act no person could perfect any right, on the basis of possession/occupation and, therefore, the passing of order dated 20.3.1996, granting transferable bhumidhari right to the occupants was illegal and as such the integrity of the petitioner is doubtful.

5. The petitioner submitted interim reply to the charge-sheet on 11.7.1998. In this interim reply, the petitioner denied the charges levelled against him. He stated that the order dated 20.3.1996 was rightl