IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.7897 of 1995 RADHIKA DEVI, widow of late Vidya Mahto, resident of village – Amwa Vijaypur, P.O. Sipaya, P.S. Kuchay Coat, District – Gopalganj. Versus 1. STATE OF BIHAR. 2. Inspector General of Police, Muzaffarpur Range, Muzaffarpur. 3. Deputy Inspector General of Police, Saran Range, Chapra. 4. Superintendent of Police, Sahebganj. 5. Superintendent of Police, Chapra. 6. Enquiry Officer cum Circle Inspector, Chapra Sadar, Chapra. ----------- For the petitioner: Mr. Ashutosh Ranjan Pandey. For the respondents: Mr. Debanjan Chowdhary, AC to SC 3. ------ 07. 01.07.2010 The erstwhile petitioner who was a constable in the Bihar Police namely, Vidya Mahto, is no more and the legal heir has been substituted in his place. The matter is being pursued by the legal heir in the hope of getting some relief by way of interference in the order of punishment of dismissal, which came to be passed against the original petitioner after holding of a departmental enquiry for his act of omission and commission of being missing from duty without any authorization or leave. Submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the order of punishment and the subsequent orders passed in appeal etc. are vitiated because the original petitioner never got proper opportunity of hearing and enquiry was not conducted in a proper manner. If the original petitioner had opportunity to effectively participate in the enquiry, he could have proved his innocence. The stand of the respondents is that the enquiry was conducted under the circumstance that the erstwhile 2 petitioner’s aberration of the kind was not first of its kind. From the record it is evident that his service book had carried 7 minor and 5 major punishments. Even in the present enquiry of being absent from duty without leave or authorization, efforts had been made to serve notices upon him on many a dates but since petitioner proved elusory, proceeding had to be conducted without his participation but before imposition of punishment he was given opportunity to which he had no satisfactory response. The stand of the respondents is that the submission with regard to unfair enquiry is not true because it was the conduct of the erstwhile petitioner in trying to sabotage or delay the enquiry which was the outcome of the predicament in which he ended up in. After going through the records and pleadings including the service records of the erstwhile petitioner as well as the reasons, the enquiry had to proceed in absence of the petitioner. It is not one of those cases where the Court should reach out and interfere with the punishment order only to extend benefit of windfall to the family since original petitioner himself is no more. The writ application has no merit. It is dismissed. rkp ( Ajay Kumar Tripathi, J )