IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH SHIMLA CWP No.1263 of 2002 Date of decision 7.4.2008 State of H.P. and anr. Petitioners Vs. Lal Singh Respondent Coram: The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Deepak Gupta, Judge The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Rajiv Sharma, Judge. Whether approved for reporting?1 No. For the Petitioners: Mr.Rajesh Mandhotra, Deputy Advocate General. For the respondent: Mr.Sanjeev Kumar, Advocate, vice counsel for the respondent. Deepak Gupta, J.(Oral) This petition by the State is directed against the order of the learned Himachal Pradesh State Administrative Tribunal dated 1.1.2002 passed in Original Application No.39/2000, filed by the respondent (hereinafter referred to as the original applicant) has been allowed and the penalty imposed upon him has been set aside. We are not going in to the detailed facts of the case in view of the decision we propose to take in the matter. Briefly stated the facts of the case are that the original applicant was working as a Forest Guard in Kalpa Block in Kalpa. Some illicit felling took place in Kalpa Block. The original applicant along with Krishan Lal Negi, Forest Ranger, Bega Nand, 1 Whether reporter of local papers is allowed to see the judgment? Yes. 2 Deputy Ranger were charged for not performing their duties properly and it was alleged that they had been negligent in the performance of their duties which led to the illicit felling thereby causing loss of Rs.2,58, 817.08 to the State. A departmental enquiry was conducted against the original applicant and other delinquent officials. The enquiry officer exonerated all the delinquent officials. The Conservator of Forest, Rampur vide letter dated 22.7.1993 forwarded the enquiry report to the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Shimla indicating the reasons why he was disagreeing with the report of the Enquiry Officer. Thereafter the disciplinary authority sent a copy of the enquiry report to the original applicant vide letter dated 15.7.1994. The Tribunal on perusal of the record observed as under: “Record has been produced today and it has been seen that no notice by the Disciplinary Authority indicating the grounds of disagreement with the enquiry officer has been issued. The learned Additional Advocate General agrees with this proposition.” Shri Rajesh Mandhotra, learned Deputy Advocate General contends that in fact this finding of the Tribunal is not correct and even the learned Additional Advocate General had fallen into error while giving this concession. He pointed out from the letter dated 15.7.1994 that with the letter the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests i.e. disciplinary authority had not only sent copy of the enquiry report but had also sent the copy of the letter of Conservator of Forests, Rampur disagreeing with the enquiry report. It is thus clear that the finding of the Tribunal to the effect that the grounds of disagreement were never communicated to the original applicant, are not correct. It appears that the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests virtually accepted the report of the Conservator of Forests and sent the same to the delinquent officials. What is the effect of this is not for us to comment on. Whether this was properly done or not, has to be 3 decided by the learned Tribunal. The learned Tribunal decided the case on the assumption that the grounds of disagreement had not been conveyed to the delinquent. This does not appear to be correct. We, therefore, set aside the order dated 1.1.2002 passed by the Tribunal and remand the matter to the learned Tribunal to decide the same afresh in accordance with law after giving adequate hearing to the parties. For the foregoing reasons, the writ petition is allowed, the order of the learned Tribunal dated 1.1.2000 is set aside and the matter remanded to the learned Tribunal for decision afresh. No order as to costs. ( Deepak Gupta ), J. April 7, 2008 (g) ( Rajiv Sharma ), J.