By the Court.—Heard Mr. H.S. Jain, learned Counsel for the petitioner and Mr. Upendra Nath Mishra, learned Counsel for the opposite parties No. 2 to 4.

2. Petitioner, a judicial officer, has filed the instant writ petition questioning the correctness and validity of the order of removal dated 1.2.2000, which was served upon the petitioner vide letter dated 2.2.2000 contained in Annexure No. 1 to the writ petition. The petitioner inter alia has also sought for quashing the inquiry report dated 1.5.1999 contained in Annexure No. 40 to the writ petition.

3. Shorn off unnecessary details, the facts of the case are as under :

4. In the year 1975, the petitioner was appointed in the U.P. Judicial Service and was posted as Munsif Magistrate at Sultanpur. Thereafter, he remained posted at different places as Munsif Magistrate. In the year 1985, he was posted as Munsif Magistrate at Lansdown, District, Pauri.

5. According to the petitioner, when he was posted as Munsif Magistrate at Lansdown, District Pauri, the District Judge, Pauri, namely, Shri D.L. Soni started harassing him unnecessarily. Therefore, he made representations to the High Court against the District Judge. On knowing this fact, the District Judge became annoyed and his harassment enhanced. Subsequently, when Hon’ble the Administrative Judge visited Lansdown Judgeship in the year 1986, the District Judge instigated some lawyers to make complaint against the petitioner and on his instigation, some lawyers of the Judgeship made frivolous complaint against the petitioner. Thereafter, the petitioner was transferred from Pauri to Varanasi in the year 1986. Immediately after 45 days from the date of assuming charge at Varanasi, the petitioner was placed under suspension in the month of September, 1986 and the matter was referred to the Administrative Tribunal, U.P., for conducting the disciplinary proceedings against the petitioner.

6. Feeling aggrieved by the order of suspension, the petitioner preferred a writ petition No. 16578 of 1987, which was disposed of vide order dated 9.8.1989 with the direction to complete the inquiry within six months.

7. It has been stated that despite the order of this Court dated 9.8.1989, charge-sheet was served upon the petitioner on 2.3.1990 alongwith the letter dated 16.2.1990. On receipt of the charge-sheet, the petitioner preferred several applications to the Administrative Tribunal as well as the High Court to make him available the relevant documents and statements of the witnesses so as to enable him to tender reply but no heed was paid. After four months, the petitioner received reply to his letters dated 1.6.1990 and 16.6.1990 by the Administrative Tribunal vide letter dated 22.6.1990. Thereafter, the petitioner made applications dated 23.12.1992 and 23.4.1993 to the Administrative Tribunal for inspecting the relevant record but he was not allowed to do so. In the meantime, vide letter dated 13.2.1995, the petitioner was informed by the then District Judge, Shahjahanpur (Sri V.S. Bajpai) that he has been appointed as Inquiry Officer and the petitioner was required to file written statement against the charge-sheet.

8. Counsel for the petitioner has submitted that when the letter dated 13.2.1995 was received by the petitioner, then, he came to know that charge-sheet was actually issued in 57 pages alongwith bio-data running in seven pages, whereas the petitioner was served with only 34 pages of the charge-sheet on 2.3.1990. Therefore, the petitioner moved several representations to the Inquiry Officer to furnish him the complete pages of the charge-sheet, copy of the full bio-data, copy of the statements of the witnesses and copy of the the relevant documents but no heed was paid. Subsequently, vide letter dated 24.6.1996, the Inquiry Officer informed the petitioner that though he had inspected the complete file of inquiry relating to incidents at Lansdown, Pauri on 12.7.1995, however, he could inspect the file again. In pursu