IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that adherence to procedural fairness and the principles of natural justice is essential in disciplinary inquiries against government servants, particularly the requirement to provide the inquiry report prior to imposing any penalties.

JUDGMENT :

Rajesh Singh Chauhan, J.

1. Heard.

2. This Court has passed the order dated 2.7.2024 which reads as under:-

"1. Heard Shri I.M. Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioner and Ms. Deepshikha, learned Chief Standing Counsel-II.

2. By means of this petition, the petitioner has assailed the impugned punishment order dated 07.03.2024 passed by Settlement Officer, Consolidation, Barabanki withholding two increments of salary of the petitioner permanently and censure entry. The main ground to assail the aforesaid impugned order of punishment is that the Inquiry Officer has not conducted the oral inquiry by fixing date, time and place; the disciplinary authority issued a show cause notice without providing the copy of the inquiry report and despite the specific demand made by the petitioner to supply the copy of inquiry report and to direct the Inquiry Officer to make oral inquiry, the punishment order have been passed.

3. Attention has been drawn towards Annexure No.11, which is a show cause notice being issued by the disciplinary authority, wherein there is no indication of supply of the copy of the inquiry report, therefore, prima facie, it convinces the Court that the show cause notice have been issued to the petitioner without providing the inquiry report.

4. The aforesaid ground may be liable to quash the impugned order of punishment but on the request of learned Chief Standing Counsel-II, the case is listed on 08.07.2024. Therefore, list/ put up this matter on 08.07.2024 as fresh in the additional cause list.

5. This matter shall be taken up immediately after fresh.

6. By the next date of listing, learned Chief Standing Counsel-II may seek complete written instructions in this matter."

3. In compliance of the aforesaid order, learned Standing Counsel has produced a copy of the detailed instructions/letter dated 4.7.2024 along with some documents, the same is taken on record.

4. The precise query of this Court was that as to whether the disciplinary authority has provided a copy of the inquiry report to the delinquent employee seeking explanation on the basis of the inquiry report inasmuch as there was no recital to this effect in the explanation being sought by the disciplinary authority. The aforesaid instructions categorically reveals that the copy of the inquiry report was not provided to the delinquent employee seeking explanation on the basis of inquiry report before passing the impugned order of punishment dated 7.3.2024. However, as per aforesaid instructions, the copy of the inquiry report has been provided to the petitioner on 30.5.2024. Besides, no specific instructions have been provided on the other query regarding fixing date, time and place for conducting oral inquiry by the Inquiry Officer.

5. Notably, a proper and complete mechanism has been given in Rule 7 of the Uttar Pradesh Government Servants (Disciple and Appeal) Rules, 1999 (hereinafter referred as 'Rules, 1999') for imposing major penalties. Rule 9 provides 'Action on Inquiry Report'. Rule 7 (i, ii, iv, v, vii, viii and ix) and Rule 9 (4) read 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:

(i) The Disciplinary Authority may himself inquiry into the charges or appoint an Authority Subordinate to him as Inquiry Officer to inquire into the charges.

(ii) The Facts constituting the misconduct on which it is proposed to take action shall be reduced in the from of definite charge or charges to be called charge-sheet. The charge-sheet shall be approved by the Disciplinary Authority. Provided that where the Appointing Authority is Governor, the charge-sheet may be approved by the Principal Secretary or the Secretary, as the case may be, of the concerned department.

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(iv) The charge Government Servant shall be required to put in a written statement of his defence in person on a specified date which shall not be less than 15 days from the date of issue o