O R D E R

The petitioner herein, while serving as a Village Administrative Officer at Kanchipuram District, was levelled with charges under Rule 17 (b) of Tamil Nadu Civil Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1955 [hereinafter referred to as “TNCS (D&A) Rules”], alleging that he had issued bogus patta, tampered the village records, changed patta number without Tahsildar's permission, removed the pages of 10 (1) chitta, issued pattas by creating bogus files and effected sub divisions in village accounts by entering false file numbers. Along with the charge-memo, three documents were relied upon by the first respondent herein, but no witnesses were shown in the charge-memo. Based on the Inquiry Officer's Report, the Disciplinary Authority had imposed the punishment of dismissal from service, through the impugned order dated 02.10.2006. The appeal against the dismissal order was rejected on 14.12.2006. The petitioner herein had preferred a Revision Petition before the Government on 29.10.2007, which was rejected after 7 years, i.e. on 01.10.2014. Challenging these orders, the present Writ Petition has been filed.

2. Heard Mr.K.Venkataramani, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner and Mr.T.Chezhiyan, learned Additional Government Pleader appearing on behalf of the respondents.

3. Mr.K.Venkataramani, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner predominantly questioned the procedure adopted by the respondents in conducting the departmental enquiry. According to him, the Inquiry Officer had not issued the mandatory questionnaire, prior to commencing of the enquiry. Further, he questioned the charge memo itself, stating that it was not accompanied by the list of witnesses and that the three documentary evidences referred to therein, were not furnished to the petitioner.

4. It is also his submission that during the course of enquiry, the Inquiry Officer, had not followed the procedures contemplated under Rule 17(b) of the TNCS (D&A) Rules and that the documents relied upon in the charge-memo were only available for perusal before the Collector's Office and the copies were not issued to the petitioner. In view of all these infirmities, the consequential punishment pursuant to the Inquiry Report, cannot be sustained.

5. Per contra, Mr.T.Chezhiyan, learned Additional Government Pleader appearing for the respondents placed reliance on the averments on record and submitted that the charges by themselves are very serious in nature. He would submit that the petitioner herein, being a Village Administrative Officer, is a custodian of the village records and therefore, tampering of records is a misconduct which cannot be dealt with leniently. It is in this background, the Inquiry Officer had held the charges to be proved and consequently, the disciplinary authority had imposed the punishment of dismissal from service.

6. I had given careful consideration to the submissions made by the learned counsel on either side.

7. Rule 17 (b) of the TNCS (D&A) Rules prescribes the procedure for conduct of departmental proceedings. As specified in Rule 8, when it is proposed to impose any of the penalties on a Government servant, the grounds on which it is proposed to take action, shall be reduced to the form of a definite charges and communicated to the person charged, together with a statement of the allegation, on which each charge is based and of any other circumstances which it is proposed to take into consideration in passing orders on the case.

8. The Rule further contemplates that an oral enquiry shall be held and during the enquiry, oral evidence shall be heard as to such of the allegations as are not admitted and the person charged shall be entitled to cross-examine the witnesses to give evidence in person.

9. The general procedures in conduct of departmental enquiry were laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, in the case of the State of Uttaranchal and others vs. Kharak Singh reported in (2008) 8 SCC 236, in the following manner:

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