Procedural fairness mandates that a complete show cause notice must be provided to a party before imposing penalties, ensuring their right to object and participate in hearings.

JUDGMENT

Having heard Sri. Shubham Agrawal learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri. Nimai Das learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel for the State, it appears that due to inadvertence, show cause notice dated 29.8.2023 that was mandatory to be issued before any penalty may have been imposed, remained to be uploaded by way of attachment. Thus, the dashboard on the portal operated by the petitioner only disclosed reference number, issue date, due date to reply, requirement of personal hearing, section description under which notice was issued. It did not contain the notice that was necessary to be attached.

2. Owing to such inadvertent error, the right of the petitioner to object to the notice and his right to hearing was completely compromised. Unless the notice had been served on the petitioner with all its contents and annexures, if any, the petitioner may never have availed his opportunity to effectively object to the notice and participate in the personal hearing.

3. It is beyond doubt that the petitioner had a perfect right to object to the show cause notice and he had a near perfect right to personal hearing.

4. Perusal of the print out of the dashboard display clearly indicates that the respondent authority also did not seek to deny such right to the petitioner. Occasioned by the inadvertence, noted above, those rights came to be denied to the petitioner.

5. In such facts, no useful purpose may ever be served in keeping such a petition pending or calling for counter affidavit at this stage.

6. Accordingly, the impugned order dated 10.10.2023 is set aside with liberty to the respondent authority to proceed in accordance with law.

7. Writ petition stands disposed of.