Hon’ble Siddharth, J.—Heard Shri Shiv Kant Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioner and Shri Chandra Prakash Yadav, learned counsel for the respondent.

2. Petitioner’s case is that he was duly selected and appointed in the year 1970 as Junior Technical Officer in the erstwhile Department of Telecommunication of Government of India and was promoted to the post of Sub-Divisional Engineer in the year 1986. The petitioner became eligible for promotion to the next higher post of Senior Sub-Divisional Engineer. There were four financial matters of the petitioner pending before the respondent No. 7, Accounts Officer (Cash), Department of Telecommunication office of Chief Manager Telecom, Banglore, who was not clearing the same and was sitting over the same with ulterior motives and for extraneous considerations :

(a) Home town LTC bill (Tour conducted in December 1994);

(b) Lesser payment of salary for the month of April, 1995;

(c) Excess recovery of sctoor advance and;

(c) Wrongful deduction of income tax in the month of January, 1996.

3. The petitioner approached the Chief Account Officer against the conduct of the respondent No. 7, who was only Accounts Officer and on his direction, the respondent No. 7 had to settle the aforesaid payments of the petitioner. However, the respondent No. 7 took it otherwise and became vindictive and inimical against the petitioner and was on the look out to fix the petitioner.

4. While serving on the aforesaid post, the petitioner made an application for leave from 28th May, 1996 to 15th June 1996 to visit his home town Hazaribagh, which was approved by the competent authority - respondent No. 2 and he was paid Rs. 6000/- as Leave Travel Concession (LTC) on 20th May, 1996 as per the All India Services (Leave Travel Concession) Rules, 1965.

5. The petitioner produced journey tickets before the respondent No. 2, Deputy General Manager, Department of Telecommunication, Naini, Allahabad (U.P.) on 21.5.1996 and also submitted prior intimation of journey on 25th May, 1996 before the respondents, three days prior to commencement of the journey on 28.5.1996, as required by the LTC Rules, 1991. At that stage, the petitioner was not required to submit return journey ticket and therefore, he did not submit the same.

6. The petitioner alongwith his family undertook the journey on 28.5.1996 from Rewa to Allahabad by Taxi and then from Allahabad to Hazaribagh Road by train and further to Hazaribagh town by Taxi. He undertook journey with his family on 15th June, 1996 to Allahabad and back to Rewa on 16.6.1996 in the same manner as he went to Hazaribagh from Rewa. Thereafter, the petitioner submitted his LTC bill claim on 10th July, 1996 before the respondent No. 2 who forwarded the same to the respondent No. 7, Account Officer (Cash), Department of Telecommunication, O/o Chief Manager Telecom, Cock Burn Road, Banglore. The respondent No. 7 instead of approving or rejecting the LTC claim of the petitioner or sending it back to the respondent No. 2 forwarded it to the Vigilance Section of the respondent No. 5, Chief General Manager, Department of Telecommunication Telecom, Cock Burn Road, Banglore, alongwith a complaint, relying upon a letter dated 12.2.1997 of the Office of Chief Commercial Manager, Reservation Complex I.R.C.A. Building, New Delhi. The Vigilance Section of respondent No. 7 did not find any substance in the complaint of the respondent No. 7 and consigned the same to the record. The aforesaid letter dated 12.2.1997 of Railway was relied upon by respondent No. 7 to prove that the petitioner and his family never travelled by train on the ticket dated 28.5.1996 and got it cancelled before the date of journey on 27.5.1996 and misappropriated the ticket amount of Rs. 6000/-. The above letter did not mention the year of booking of the ticket and the date of its cancellation.

7. When no interest was taken by the Vigilance Department on the complaint of respondent No. 7, he recovered Rs. 3,500/- f