The court reinforced that in disciplinary proceedings, the authority is the sole judge of facts, and unless serious violations of procedural fairness occur, their findings are upheld.

JUDGMENT :

Saurabh Shyam Shamshery, J.

1. Heard Sri Naman Agarwal, learned counsel for petitioner, Sri Vivek Kumar Singh, learned counsel for respondent No.1 and Sri Utkarsh Prakash Singh, holding brief of Sri Santosh Kumar Singh, learned counsel for respondent Nos. 2 and 3.

2. The petitioner is a 2013 graduate in B.Tech (Mining Engineering) from a prestigious institution, namely, IIT, (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, Jharkhand. He has claimed that from 01.07.2013 to 30.01.2014, he worked as a Management Trainee (Supply Chain) in a company named, M/s Hansa Management Services Pvt. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as, ‘M/s HMSPL’) and subsequently, from 31.01.2014 till 18.011.2017, worked as a Trade Executive at another company named M/s Zicron Sugar Solutions Pvt. Ltd (hereinafter referred to as, ‘M/s ZSSPL’).

3. The dispute in present case is the experience certificate issued by M/s ZSSPL as it is alleged to be a fake experience certificate though disputed by the petitioner. The petitioner has applied for the post of Junior Executive (Commercial) at Airports Authority of India and at that stage, he has not disclosed about his experience as M/s ZSSPL and he cleared the examination, interview and joined as Junior Executive (Commercial) at Vadodara Airport with effect from 19.01.2017.

4. Later on in pursuance of an advertisement No.2 of 2018, issued by Airports Authority of India, the petitioner has applied for the post of Manager (Commercial), which requires a 5 years experience in executive cadre in the field of marketing. At this juncture, petitioner has submitted an experience certificate dated 22.02.2017 issued by M/s ZSSPL. The petitioner was successful in the examination process and an appointment letter dated 14.05.2019 was issued for the post of Manager (Commercial) at AAI, Coimbatore and he joined at said post on 03.06.2019.

5. It is further case of petitioner that an anonymous unsigned complaint dated 10.05.2019 was sent at the Office of respondents that experience certificate issued from M/s ZSSPL submitted by petitioner was fake. It is further case of petitioner that experience certificate was verified by M/s ZSSPL vide letter dated 16.03.2020 and 27.02.2021 in pursuance of communications made by the respondents, still a charge-sheet dated 03.11.2022 was issued against petitioner for submitting a fake experience certificate.

6. The petitioner has submitted a reply and participated in the inquiry also which is reflected from document annexed along with this writ petition that he was granted opportunity to cross examination of witnesses also. The Inquiry Officer submitted an inquiry report dated 06.11.2023, which refers that inquiry was conducted as many as on 8 dates and petitioner was allowed to participate and has cross-examined witnesses at length. The inquiry report is a detailed document, wherein after analysing statements of witnesses and their cross- examination and documents, it was finally concluded that article of charge No. 1 was proved that experience certificate submitted by petitioner that he has worked from 31.01.2014 to 18.01.2017 in M/s ZSSPL was a fake document. The relevant part of inquiry report is reproduced hereinafter :-

“VII. ANALYSIS OF STATEMENTS OF PROSECUTION WITNESSES MADE DURING THE INQUIRY/EXAMINATION- CROSS EXAMINATION:

Out of 4 Prosecution witnesses. 3 were present on tour while fourth witness(Sh. Kamlesh H Shah, SM(HR)) had been retired and went to abroad as informed by controlling station and could not joined the hearing.

During the inquiry, P.O. examined and CO cross examined the witnesses.

Sh. Hitesh Ratilal Vora,