IMPORTANT POINT
In disciplinary inquiries, the establishment must prove charges through adequate evidence, and failure to provide a fair opportunity for the accused to defend themselves constitutes a violation of natural justice.

JUDGMENT :

J.J. MUNIR, J.

1. This writ petition is directed against an order of the Chairman, Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited, Lucknow (for short, 'the Corporation') dated 23.07.2021, dismissing the petitioner from service, besides directing recovery, and the appellate order of the Corporation Board dated 18.02.2022, dismissing the petitioner's appeal arising out of the order passed by the Chairman aforesaid.

2. The petitioner was appointed a Peon with the erstwhile Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board on 11.04.1997. Subsequently, upon establishment of the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited and its subsidiary Distribution Companies, including the Purvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited, the Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board was dissolved. The petitioner and other employees of the Board were transferred to the Corporation. The petitioner was posted with Purvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited, Varanasi (hereinafter, referred to as the Distribution Corporation). The Corporation, considering the petitioner’s unblemished service record, granted him promotion to the post of an Office Attendant. He was serving on the said post until the date of the impugned order.

3. In the year 2017, a Human Rights Organization, called Teesri Ankh through its founder, one Shailendra Kumar Mishra, laid complaints to the Distribution Corporation regarding incorrect revision/correction of electricity bills of consumers. Upon receipt of the said complaint, the Director (P&A) of the Corporation, vide order dated 21.05.2017, constituted a three member Inquiry Committee to hold a preliminary inquiry into the veracity of the allegations. The three member Committee probed the matter and submitted reports dated 17.11.2017 and 01.06.2018 to the Director (P&A), last mentioned. Upon receipt of the reports, the Director (P&A), vide a letter dated 17.09.2018, transferred the matter to himself for the purpose of instituting disciplinary proceedings against the officer and employees, including the petitioner, as indicated in the letter. Subsequently, a charge-sheet dated 22.04.2019 was issued to the petitioner by a two member Inquiry Committee comprising the Chief Engineer and the Accountant of the Corporation.

4. A perusal of the charge-sheet shows that though it carries a solitary charge but, in fact, it relates to seventy different consumers about whom there were allegations regarding irregular proceedings to rectify their electricity bills and electricity disconnections, without following the guidelines of the Corporation as well as ignoring the provisions of the Electricity Supply Code, 2005 in order to give undue benefit to the consumers, causing wrongful loss to the Corporation and wrongful gain to himself. The evidence cited in support of the charge are sixteen complaints by Shailendra Kumar Mishra, founder General Secretary of Teesri Ankh, the Human Rights Organization, Gorakhpur and a letter of the Director of the Distribution Corporation dated 17.09.2018. In answer to the charge-sheet dated 22.04.2019, issued to the petitioner, he submitted a reply dated 19.06.2019.

5. It is the petitioner's case that no formal notice regarding fixation of a date for inquiry was given to the petitioner but the petitioner was informally informed by the Executive Engineer, Electricity Distribution Division of the Distribution Corporation about the date of hearing. The petitioner appeared before the Inquiry Committee which recorded the petitioner's statement. It is, particularly, pleaded in paragraph no. 18 of the writ petition that the Inquiry Committee did not inform the petitioner about any other proceedings nor the date was fixed by the Inquiry Committee, except the last mentioned date, where the statement of the petitioner alone was recorded.

6. It is averred in paragraph no. 19 that except recording the petitioner’s statement, no evidence whatsoever was led before the Inquiry Committee by anybody. In paragraph no. 22 it was averred that the testimony of Shail