Employment cannot be sustained on fraudulent grounds; misrepresentation results in voidable appointments, rejecting claims for continued service.

ORDER :

Petitioner was appointed as Junior Lineman on compassionate grounds vide proceedings dated 26.03.2008. Thereafter, he was placed under suspension on 11.06.2008 on the ground that bogus provisional National Trade Certificate (Electrician Trade) was produced at the time of his appointment. Divisional Engineer (Inquiries), Asmangadh was appointed as Enquiry Officer and he himself framed chare memo dated 18.09.2008 for which, petitioner is stated to have submitted explanation. Dissatisfied with the same, show cause notice dated 15.11.2008 was issued and the competent authority / disciplinary authority / 3^rd respondent dismissed petitioner from service vide memo dated 12.03.2009. Aggrieved thereby, petitioner preferred a statutory Appeal which was turned down by the 2^nd respondent by order dated 25.06.2009. Revision and further revision preferred thereagainst before the 1st respondent were also negatived by memos dated 26.04.2010 and 21.07.2010 respectively. Hence the Writ Petition.

2. The Superintending Engineer, Operation, South Circle in his counter-affidavit clearly stated that at the time of appointment of petitioner vide letter dated 22.04.2008 a request was made to the Commissioner, Employment and Training to verify the genuineness of the certificate produced by petitioner, who, in turn, certified that it to be not genuine. The Superintending Engineer vide memo dated 11.06.2008 suspended petitioner from service and appointed the Divisional Engineer, Enquiries as Enquiry Officer to conduct departmental enquiry. In the oral enquiry, petitioner stated that basing on the suggestion of somebody, he submitted false ITI certificate and requested to continue him in the service as per his eligibility. The Enquiry Officer vide memo dated 03.11.2008 submitted enquiry report holding petitioner guilty. After fulfilling the formalities, vide memo dated 12.03.2009, the Superintending Engineer ordered that petitioner is deemed to have been dismissed with immediate effect besides treating the suspension period undergone by him as such. It is stated that petitioner cheated the department, which constitutes misconduct as per Regulation 6(XXX) of APSEB Discipline and Appeal Regulations as adopted by APCPDCL.

Therefore, he is not entitled for any discretionary relief.

4. Learned counsel for petitioner made his submissions on two counts; firstly, the entire disciplinary proceedings are vitiated. The 3^rd respondent is the competent authority / disciplinary authority to issue charge memo, but in this case, the Enquiry Officer ie. Divisional Engineer issued the charge-memo. He contends that approval granted for initiating disciplinary proceedings cannot be taken as approval for issuance of charge memo and for issuance of charge-memo, separate approval of disciplinary authority is necessary. In support thereof, he relies on the judgment of the Hon’ble Apex Court in Union of India v. B.V. Gopinath , [AIR 2014 Supreme Court 88] and the composite High Court of Andhra Pradesh in Ch. Appala Reddy v. Eastern Power Distribution Company of A.P. Ltd , Visakhapatnam, [2005(3) ALD 525 (DB)]

Secondly, the alleged bogus certificate and other documents relied upon by the respondents have not been furnished to petitioner. Further, explanation of petitioner that his father’s colleague in the inertest to rescue their distressed family might have secured the so-called bogus certificate and enclosed the same without his knowledge, has not been considered in a proper perspective. Learned counsel submits that in the light of the factual matrix, the respondents ought to have considered the case of petitioner for employment basing on SSC qualification on sympathetic grounds as