Srivastava, J. -- 1. Feeling aggrieved by the judgment and order passed by the learned Single Judge where under allowing the writ petition filed by the contesting respondent, the punishment of removal from service imposed upon him had been set aside substituting reversion for the same for one step below the post held by him with a further direction requiring the appellant to pay him fifty per cent of the back wages which he would have earned on the reverted post, the employer has now come up in Letters Patent Appeal seeking redress praying for the reversal of the impugned order.

2. We have heard the learned counsel for the appellants as well as the learned counsel representing the contesting respondent arid have carefully perused the record.

3. The facts in brief, shorn of details and necessary for the disposal of this appeal, lie in a narrow compass. A common disciplinary proceeding under the provisions of the Central Warehousing Corporation (Staff) Regulations, 1986, was initiated against the respondent, Shri J.S. Brah, holding the post of Superintendent of the Central Warehouse, situate at Mullanpur; as well as against shri D.S. Eraich, Technical Assistant; Shri Tarsemlal, Warehouse• Assistant Grade I and Shri Inderjit Singh, Chowkidar posted there and working under the administrative control of Shri J.S. Brah, the Superintendent; by serving separate charge-sheets levelling various charges against them. The aforesaid disciplinary proceeding had been initiated against the aforesaid employees after the receipt of a complaint about misappropriation of the stock at Central Warehouse, Mullanpur, after holding a preliminary inquiry. .

4. The charge levelled against Shri J.S. Erah was that he colluded with Shri Tarsemlal and other staff members. and suppressed material information of misappropriation of 141 bags of wheat from godown No. 31 and pilferage of 29 bags of urea from godown No. 30 at Mullanpur and had also allowed Shri Tarsemlal, Warehouse Assistant Grade I to make good the misappropriated stock accepting the same with lesser weight as against the original weight and thereby had put the corporation to a loss of about 1021 kgs of wheat keeping the higher authorities, i.e. Head Office/ Regional Office in dark about the same. The other charge was to the effect that he had failed to ensure that the staff working under his control maintained absolute integrity and performed their duties with devotion and thus he had contravened Regulation 39(ii) of the CWC (Staff) Regulations, 1986.

5. The Enquiry Officer, after carefully considering the evidence produced by the parties, came to the conclusion that Shri Brah could not establish that any information about the incident dated 11.8.1986, when the loss had been detected, was given to the Head Office/Regional Office. The case set up by Shri Brah that a copy of the written complaint sent by him to the Police was also sent to the Regional Office, was disbelieved holding that nothing else was done and it could not be proved that copy of the said complaint was dispatched to the Regional Office and in fact there was nothing to indicate that the aforesaid alleged written complaint was ever received or recorded by the Police as claimed. It was also found that such a serious incident of misappropriation should not have been dealt with in the manner it was done by Shri Brah on whom a duty stood cast under the standing Instructions to give telegraphic information to the Regional Office/ Head Office besides lodging insurance claim which should have been done on the date of occurrence which in the present case was 11.8.1986. It was also found that Shri Brah had not sought for any clarification in writing either from Shri Tarsemlal or Inderjit Singh. The assertion of the delinquent that he had sought oral explanation was held to be unacceptable. The Enquiry Officer came to the conclusion that the delinquent official had suppressed the incident, which was detected only when the investigat