C.W.P. No.14992 of 2008 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH C.W.P. No.14992 of 2008 Date of Decision:- 10.09.2010 Ramesh Chander ...Petitioner Versus The Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana Panchkula & ors. ..Respondents Present: Mr. Sanjiv Gupta, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. R.D. Sharma, DAG, Haryana for respondent No. 1 Mr. Girish Agnihotri, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Arvind Seth, Advocate for respondents No. 2 and 3 *** PERMOD KOHLI, J. While working as Storekeeper (Wheat)4 at Fatehabad, the petitioner was served with a charge-sheet dated 11.01.2000 with the following charges:- “1. That he is responsible for giving less gain to the tune of 431.42.560 qtls. valuing Rs.2,42,804.00 in the dispatches of 157826/- bags of wheat Rabi, 1997, to FCI during 1.6.97 to 31.3.98. 2. That he is responsible for excess replacement of 282 bags amounting to Rs.7134.60 in the wheat stocks. 3. That he is responsible for the moisture cut of Rs.96050/- imposed by FCI on 24160 bags of wheat containing 12% to 13% moisture, dispatch on 12.3.1998. 4. That he is responsible for the interest loss of Rs.35880/- caused to Hafed by submitting despatch documents of 211160 bags by 5 days late”. C.W.P. No.14992 of 2008 -2- He has submitted his reply to the charge sheet denying his liability(Annexure P-2). The show cause notice dated 24.06.2003 was served upon the petitioner purposing to impose penalty of stoppage of two grade increments with cumulative effect. Besides, recovery of Rs.1,91,830/- on account of pecuniary loss caused to Hafed.The petitioner also replied to the show cause notice vide Annexure P-4. The Managing Director, Haryana State Cooperative Supply and Market Federation LImited, Panchkula vide order dated 22.12.2003 imposed penalty of stoppage of two grade increments without cumulative effect besides recovery of Rs.1,91,830/- upon the petitioner to be recovered from 1/3rd of his salary per month. It may be noticed here that charges No. 2 and 4 were dropped in the show cause notice itself and, thus, punishment has been imposed only in respect of charges No. 1 and 3. The petitioner filed the appeal against the order of Punishment dated 23.01.2004 before the Board of Directors-respondent No. 2. While the appeal was pending, the petitioner filed C.W.P No. 16589 of 2006 before this Court. This writ petition came to be disposed of vide order dated 19.10.2006 directing the appeallate authority to decide the appeal after granting an opportunity of personal hearing to the petitioner. The petitioner pleaded with the respondent that effect of the rainfall has been considered while determining the moisture cut, storage gain and dry-aged shortage etc. The petitioner relied upon communication dated 04.04.2003 from the Hafed to the General Manager (Annexure P- 10). The appellate authority i.e Board of Directors vide their order dated 26.07.2007 dismissed the appeal of the petitioner with the following observations:- “The committee further observed that according to the data of rain submitted by Shri Ramesh Chander, the C.W.P. No.14992 of 2008 -3- rain was during May, 1997. But he has not submitted any proof regarding rain during the month of March, 1998. Moreover, there was higher moisture in the stocks due to rains during storage, then there should have been extra wheat storage gain that the norms. But in this case, gain has been less than the norms. Thus, the plea of increase of moisture due to rain cannot be accepted and hence, no benefit due to moisture cut imposed by FCI can be given to Shri Ramesh Chander.” The revision filed by the petitioner before the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana Panchkula was partly allowed vide order dated 15.05.2008. In the reply filed, respondents have relied upon norms laid down for storage gains in Wheat Stocks. A copy of the norms dated 10.06.1992 has been placed on record as annexure R-1. Following norms have been prescribed for storage gains monthwise:- “ Months Storage Gains April-June No loss in wheat July 800 gms. per quintal August 900 gms. per quintal September 1000 gms. per quintal October to Dec. 1200 gms. per quintal January to March 1400 gms. per quintal April onwards 1200 gms. per quintal” During the course of hearing, two important issues have come up for consideration before this Court. One is that up to the tune, no loss in wheat is prescribed under the norms and in July, 800 grams per quintal of storage gains is prescribed. It has come on record that the despatches were made on 01 and 02 July, 1997 and thus within 2 days there cannot C.W.P. No.14992 of 2008 -4- be storage gains. The other aspect is that norms annexed as R-1 did not deal with the moisture cut. While considering the loss no consideration was given to the moisture cut. The petitioner in his revision petition had specifically pleaded all these facts. In the revision petition, the appellate- authority did not consider these aspects. As a matter of fact, the issues raised in the appeal/revision have not been effectively and appropriately answered. The norms relied upon vide Annexure R-1 have also not been applied appropriately on the established facts on record. In this view of the matter, this petition is allowed. The impugned order annexure P-7 dated 22.12.2003 imposing penalty and order of the appellate authority annexure P-12 dated 26.04.2007 and that of the Revisional authority annexure P-13 dated 15.05.2008 are hereby set aside. The matter is remitted back to the Punishing authority for reconsideration of the question of imposition of penalty. In the light of the above facts that no consideration was accorded for moisture cut and storage gain as per the norms. Septmber 10, 2010 (PERMOD KOHLI) G.Arora JUDGE