JUDGMENT :

VIVEK CHAUDHARY, J.

1. Heard Shri Jaideep Narain Mathur and Shri Upendra Nath Mishra, learned senior advocates, Shri Gaurav Mehrotra, Shri Ramesh Kumar Srivastava, Shri Raj Kumar Upadhyaya, Shri Pt. S. Chandra, Shri Apoorva Tewari and other counsels for the petitioners. Sri Kuldeep Pati Tripathi, learned Additional Advocate General, Sri Ravi Singh Sisodiya, learned Chief Standing Counsel-III, Shri Ratnesh Chandra and learned counsel for the respective department appeared for the respondents.

2. The departmental inquiries with regard to the major punishment in the State of U.P. are in utter chaos since long. Day in and out, punishment orders are challenged before this Court wherein Rule 7 of U.P. Government Servant (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1999 (hereinafter referred to as ‘Rules of 1999’) is violated. In fact, entire roster of a Judge can pass without a single case of major punishment being placed before him in which Rule 7 of Rules of 1999 is complied with. Rule 7 (iii) and (vii) of Rules of 1999 reads as under:

“7. Procedure for imposing major penalties - Before imposing any major penalty on a Government Servant, an inquiry shall be held in the following manner:

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(iii) The charge framed shall be so precise and clear as to give sufficient indication to the charged Government Servant of the facts and circumstances against him. The proposed documentary evidence and the name of the witnesses proposed to prove the same alongwith oral evidence, if any, shall be mentioned in the charge-sheet.

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(vii) Where the charged Government Servant denies the charge, the Inquiry Officer shall proceed to call the witnesses proposed in the charge-sheet and record their oral evidence in presence of the charged Government Servant who shall be given opportunity to cross-examine such witnesses. After recording the aforesaid evidence, the Inquiry Officer shall call and record the oral evidence which the charged Government Servant desired in his written statement to be produced in his defence:

Provided that the Inquiry Officer may for reasons to be recorded in writing refuse to call a witness.”

3. The seriousness of the situation resulted in repeated orders passed by the Supreme Court, by this Court as well as Government Orders issued. Relevant amongst these read as follows:

This Court in the case of Prakash Chandra Agrawal vs. State of U.P. and Another, Writ Appeal No. 2555 of 2022, decided on 7.5.2022, passed the following order:

“1. Present writ petition is filed by the petitioner challenging his punishment order dated 11.04.2022 passed by Additional Chief Secretary/Principal Secretary, Secretariat Administration Department, Lucknow (respondent no. 2).

2. By the impugned order, petitioner is given a punishment of censure entry and reversion to the post of Section Officer from the post of Under-Secretary.

3. At the very outset, learned counsel for petitioner submits that the inquiry was conducted by the Special Secretary, Medical Education Services, U.P. who submitted her report on 25.08.2021. He submits that in the present case, the inquiry officer was never provided the documents to which she had relied upon in the inquiry. The said documents were summoned by the inquiry officer during the conduct of the inquiry and were also perused by her. However, neither copy of the said documents were provided to the petitioner nor the same were permitted to be perused by the petitioner. Learned counsel for petitioner further submits that a bare perusal of the report shows that the inquiry was conducted in violation of Rule-7 of the U.P. Government Servants (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1999 (hereinafter referred to as ‘Rules of 1999’) as no date, time and place was fixed in the inquiry.

4. I have perused the inquiry report as well as the impugned punishment order. A bare perusal of the same shows that the inquiry officer has, in fact, not merely failed to follow the procedure provided by Rule-7 of Rules of 1999 but has also placed