1984 PLP 1705 (PLC(CS))

A.O. RAZIUR RAHMAN (MEMBER).-The appellant, an Upper Division Clerk in the Revenue Office (Power), WAPDA at Islamabad, was dismis sed from service, with immediate effect, by Order No. 52, dated 16th Feb ruary 1982, issued by the Superintending Engineer (Electricity) WAPDA, Islamabad, on account of embezzlement and committing a fraud while working in the same office. He made a representation against this order before the Chief Engineer, WAPDA, Islamabad on 17th February, 1982 and having failed to get a reply to the representation within 90 days of its submission, filed the present appeal before this Tribunal on 3rd June, 1982. The appeal, having been admitted for hearing, by order dated 30th June, 1982, came up for regular hearing on 14th November, 1982 and 17th November, 1982 and is being disposed of by this order.

2. The facts of the case are that on 1st October, 1981, the Revenue Officer (Power) WAPDA, Islamabad, issue Memo hearing. No. 4375-78/ ROL- PF, calling upon the appellant to explain his position with regard to an allegation made against him that he had issued a bogus duplicate bill to a Consumer Haji Muhammad Iqbal, for the month of August, 1981, in which the amount of the bill had been shown as Rs. 6.50 and the due date as 21st September, 1981, when they should have been Rs. 644.68 and 14th September, 1981, respectively. He was required to submit his reply within three days of the receipt of the letter, failing which, he was infor med, disciplinary action would be taken against him. He submitted his explanation on 3rd October, 1981, denying the allegation and stating that the duplicate bill, referred to, had not been issued by him, either inten tionally or inadvertently, that being an experienced employee of WAPDA, dealing with commercial account, he knew that the minimum consump tion charges for commercial premises could not be claimed as Rs. 6.50 and that, in order to enable him to trace the actual culprit, he may be furnish ed with a copy of the bill in question. He further mentioned that, according to his information, the Consumer had paid the original bill amounting to Rs. 644.68. It appears that the copy of the bill was furnished to the appellant on 20th October, 1981 under Memo. No. 4608/ ROLPF. issued by the Revenue Officer (Power), WAPDA, Islamabad, by which he was also directed to trace out the actual offender, failing which, he was warned, a charge-sheet would be issued to him. The charge-sheet was actually issued on 5th December, 1981, in which he was charged as under :- You have issued a bogus duplicate bill to Haji Muhammad Iqbal Pind Bagowal Tarli bearing Account No. 412033327008 for the month of August, 1981 amounting to Rs. 6.50 with the due date as 21st September, 1981 with your own handwriting. On verification of the ledger record it has been found that a bill for Rs. 644.68 payable for August, 1981 within due date i.e. 14th September, 1981 was required to be issued. It has also been noticed that you have amended the payment voucher as Rs. 656.50 from Rs. 6.50 on the bank stamp and the amount pay able within due date. The amount payable after due date has also been amended as Rs. 677.87 from Rs. 7.00 with your initial on bill with intention of fraud/ulterior motive." Some time after this, i.e. on 11th January, 1982, he was transferred to another section of the same office. On 21st February, 1982, he submitted his reply to the charge-sheet in which he repeated his stand that he had not prepared the duplicate bill and that somebody else had done this to do him harm. Thereafter by Office Order No. 1448-50/INQ : 33 dated 10th February, 1982, an Enquiry Committee, comprising the Deputy Com mercial Manager as Convener and the Executive Engineer (Electricity), Operation Division No. II, WAPDA, Islamabad and Revenue Officer (Power), WAPDAI Islamabad, as Members, was constituted by the Super intending Engineer (Electricity) to probe into the charges levelled against the appellant. The Committee met in the Office of the Superintending Engineer (Electricity), WAPDA, Islamabad on 14th February, 1982 and, after examining the accused, finalized its report on the same date, in which it observed as follows :- "After going through both the cases in detail, consulting the record and after personal hearing of the accused, the Committee is of the view that both the charges stand proved against the accused. Thus, he may be dealt with under the (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules." This was followed two days later by the impugned order, dated 16th February, 1982.

3. The grounds on which the appeal has been preferred are listed below :-- (i) The requirement of law that the charge-sheet should be accom panied by a statement of allegations had not been fulfilled inas much as no statement of allegations was furnished to the appel lant, alongwith the charge-sheet. (ii) The charge-sheet contained only one charge, relating to the issuance of a bogus duplicate bill amounting to Rs. 6.50 but punishment had been awarded on the basis of two charges includ ing an additional charge that he had illegally given credit of Rs. 506 to another consumer. In this way, he had been punished for a charge which had not been put to him and which he had not been called upon to contest. (iii) The second charge was clearly fictitious and irrelevant to the conduct of the accused, since, on the date to which it relates, he was employed in the Meter Reading Control Section, where he was not concerned with giving credit to any subscriber. (iv) Although the case had been initiated on the complaint of the Revenue Officer himself, the same officer had been included as a member of the Enquiry Committee set up under the (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules. In this way, the said officer had become a judge in his own cause and thus the entire proceedings stood vitiated. (v) The enquiry held by the Committee was a complete farce, insofar as neither any witnesses were produced by the prosecution, in the presence of the accused, nor the accused asked to produce any witnesses. Besides, the accused was threatened and pressurised by the Committee to admit the charge on pain of the case being banded over to the Police for criminal action, which led the appellant to comply with their wishes and admit his guilt. (vi) The case was concocted by the Revenue Officer, because the appellant did not join in the conspiracy to cheat and defraud Government of revenue by making bogus adjustment in blank adjustment forms, signed by the Revenue Officer, which had been banded over to the Appellant by the said office. (vii) No copy of the enquiry report was supplied to the appellant in order to enable him to contest any of the findings therein. (viii) There was not legal evidence on the basis of which the impugned action could be justified and the bogus bill amounting to Rs. 6.50 was the work of the son of the subscriber, which the subscriber admitted in application made to the department on 30th Septem ber, 1981, in which he clearly stated that the son had done the mischief and that no employee of WAPDA was involved in the affair. (ix) The penalty of dismissal from service was too harsh and dispro portionate to the offence alleged and proved.

4. In the written objections filed on behalf of the respondent, it has been pointed out that the charge-sheet contained the detailed statement of allegations, which was an adequate compliance of the legal requirement. In regard to the second point in the grounds of appeal, it was stated that the other allegation on the basis of which the Enquiry Committee found him guilty, was also looked into by the Committee, because, before the holding of the enquiry, the misconduct relating to wrongful adjustment of Rs. 506 had been discovered and the appellant appraised of it. On the point that the offence relating to the second charge took place at the time when the appellant had nothing to do with the matter, on the reply given is that the appellant had himself admitted in his statement before the Committee that he had filled the adjustment card and that the signature on the adjustment card was his. As for the presence of the Revenue Officer on the Enquiry Committee, the reply given is that it was not a personal cause of the Revenue Officer and that he neither served the charge-sheet nor enjoined the status of the authority competent to award punishment. As for the non-production of witnesses, the respondent's stand is that the documentary evidence was so clear and convincing that no oral evidence was found to be necessary and that the admission made by the appellant completely settled the issue. In this connection, the allegation regarding exerting of pressure has been stated to be an afterthought on the part of the appellant. The next ground relating to malpractice, stated to have been indulged in by the Revenue Officer, has been denied and it has been stated by way of clarification that, while getting the adjustment sheet signed by the Revenue Officer, it is quite possible that his signature on a blank sheet may have been obtained by somebody, without the Revenue Officer being able to detect it. The point about non-supply of the enquiry report has been admitted in the written objections, but it has been asserted that it was not true that there was no legal evidence and that the application, dated 30th September, 1981, submitted by the sub3criber, was a contrived one, which could not explain away the bogus duplicate bill admitted by the appellant to have been signed by him.

5. Having beard both the parties in detail and perused the documents produced before us by the authorities, we have come to the following conclusions : (i) There is no force in the contention that, because the charge-sheet is not accompanied by a separate statement of allegations the requirement of law has not been fulfilled. Although, it is true that) the charge-sheet, admittedly, contained all the facts of the case and no essential details of the allegations had been left out. Therefore, even though the letter of the law had not been followed the spirit of the same had been complied with and no prejudice was caused to the accused in his defence. (ii) It is true that, while the charge-sheet contained only one charge, the punishment was awarded on the basis of two charges. The second charge was added by the Enquiry Committee at the time of the hearing. There was no justification for this action on the part of the Enquiry Committee and their findings in regard to this charge will have to be ignored for the purpose of this appeal. (iii) In view of the observation at (ii) above, it is not considered necessary to go into the correctness or otherwise of the second charge. (iv) The proceedings were no doubt started against the appellant on the report of the Revenue Officer. But the Revenue Officer himself was not a party to the case. Since the facts, on the basis of which proceedings were started, had come to his notice, in his official capacity, he had to report about it to the higher authori ties, who ordered proceedings to be drawn up against the appel lant. All the same, from the fact that the Revenue Officer was responsible for initiating action in the matter, it could be held that he should not have sat as a Member of the Enquiry Committee set up for the purpose of probing into the allegations against the appellant. However, since two other officers, very much senior to the Revenue Officer, namely, the Deputy Commer cial Manager and the Executive Engineer (Electricity), were Members of the Committee, it cannot be held that the presence of the Revenue Officer, although not quite regular, caused any pre judice to the accused in his defence. (v) It is true that no witnesses were produced by the prosecution. The statement made by the appellant before the Committee was sufficient to establish his guilt and no further evidence, oral or documentary, was needed to establish the charges against him. The appellant while denying, in the beginning, that he had prepared the duplicate bill, later on admitted, in reply to ques tions put to him, that he had actually prepared it in his own handwriting at the instance of some other person. An examina tion of the bill in question reveals that, although, to begin with, both the Bank's portion and the Consumer's portion of the bill mentioned Rs. 6.50 as the amount payable, the Consumer's copy as also the Bank's endorsement of payment thereon, was subse quently amended to show Rs. 656.50 as the amount payable and paid. These changes are also apparently in the appellant's handwriting. Therefore, in view of his own admission, and the request made by him for a sympathetic view being taken of the case, there is no room for any doubt that the charge of preparing a fictitious duplicate bill and, subsequently, amending the pay ment voucher from Rs: 6.50 to Rs. 656.50 had been fully estab lished and there was no need for examining any witness or other document. In view of this, we cannot accept the plea that the enquiry held by the Committee was a farce. At the same time, we do not see any reason for believing the appellant's version that he was coerced into admitting the charges on pain of the case being handed over to the Police for criminal action. For one thing, the appellant was a grown-up person, who was not expect ed to be frightened by the mere threat of confrontation with the Police, unless he had a guilty conscience. For another, he has not been able to convince us by any positive evidence that the Revenue Officer or anybody else in his office had any malice or grudge against him, for which he would implicate him falsely in a case like this. (vi) The appellant claims that he refused to join hands with the Revenue Officer in a conspiracy to defraud Government of revenue by making false entries in blank adjustment forms already signed by the Revenue Officer. In this connection, he produced before us the photo-stat copy of a blank adjustment form, which bore the initials of the Revenue Officer. In the written objections, it has been explained by the department that the Revenue Officer may have put his signature on a blank form, while signing the completed adjustment forms, without his detecting that he was signing a blank form, because the same may have placed in between a number of completed forms, all of which could not be examined at the time of signing. It is difficult to say whether the explanation given by the Revenue Officer, for the existence of a blank form bearing his signature or initials, is correct or it is a fact that the blank forms were signed by him knowingly, as alleged by the appellant. But, from the mere fact that a blank form bearing the initials or signature of the Revenue Officer has been produced by the appellant, it cannot be deduced that the Revenue Officer was a party to a conspiracy to defraud WAPDA of its revenues with the help of his subordinates. If there was any such conspiracy, and the appellant was so honest and conscientious that he refused to join such a conspiracy, it is a pertinent question as to why, in the face of the refusal of the appellant to join hands with him in the malpractice, the Revenue Officer handed him over a blank form to be filled up. Secondly, if there was really a conspiracy of the nature alleged, why did not the appellant bring it to the notice of the higher authori ties ? Moreover, even if the story of the conspiracy is accepted as true, how does it explain the fact that a bogus duplicate bill was prepared which, apparently, is in the handwriting of the appel lant, which fact has been admitted by him in his statement before the Enquiry Committee, in which he has also alleged that he had been forced by his immediate superior to prepare the bogus bill ? If it is a fact that the appellant was such as honest and scrupu lous person and of such strong moral fibre that he refused to join a conspiracy in which the Revenue Officer himself was involved, why did he, as admitted by him before the Enquiry Committee, succumb to the instigation of his superior to prepare a bogus duplicate bill ? Similarly, if he were really a person of very strong will power, how is one to believe the story put for ward by the appellant that he had been threatened and pres surised by the Committee to admit the charges against him ? Considering the claim made by the appellant, one should have expected that he would not have signed the statement which the Committee allegedly put into his mouth and placed before him for his signature. (vii) The non-supply of the Enquiry Report to the appellant is, no doubt, an irregularity committed by the authorities, However, since the appellant had, in his statement before the Committee, admitted the charges relating to the duplicate bill, for which he was served with a charge-sheet, the non-supply of the report of the Enquiry Committee did not materially affect his case and, since he has had an opportunity of explaining his position in the departmental representation, as well as before this Tribunal, and since he has not been able to convince us that statement claimed to have been made by him before the Enquiry Committee was extorted from him by coercion, we are satisfied that the non-supply to him of the Enquiry Report has not materially affected his case. (viii) The plea that the bogus duplicate bill of the value of Rs." 6.50 was the work of the son of the subscriber and not that of the appellant is unbelievable, in the face of the fact that not only does the said bill bear the initials of the appellant and contain entries which are undoubtedly in his handwriting, but that the entries also have been cleverly made with reference to those in the rele vant office record, which could not have been available to the son of the subscriber to copy out and reproduce in the bogus bill. In fact, the manner in which the bill had been prepared and, subse quently, altered after payment to the Bank, clearly shows that it was the work of an expert, who could not be other than a depart mental hand. In view of the clear handwriting of the appellant, the possibility of any other person having prepared the said bill cannot even be entertained. (ix) The quantum of punishment, to which the appellant has referred cannot be said to be excessive, in view of the gravity of the offence. The appellant was guilty not only of conspiring to defraud of WAPDA of its revenue but also of forgery and cheat ing. The punishment of dismissal from service would not, there fore, appear to be severe. But, considering the fact that the appellant is a young man, who joined service as recently as 1st September, 1976 and has barely put in six years of service, it is felt that a compassionate view of the case can be taken and that, instead of debarring him permanently from service under Government, or any organization controlled by Government he, can be given a chance to reform himself and earn an honest living by reducing the punishment from dismissal to removal from service.

6. In the light of the above, we reduce the punishment inflicted on the appellant from dismissal to removal from service. With this modifi cation in the impugned order, the appeal is dismissed.

7. No order as to costs. A. E. Appeal dismissed but punishment reduced.