IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTY SECOND DAY OF OCTOBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE R.SUBHASH REDDY WRIT PETITION No: 15441 of 1999 Between: S. Muralidhar Reddy, S/o. S. Krishna Reddy, R/o.H.No.1/101, Karmanghat, Saroornagar Mandal, Rangareddy District. ..... PETITIONER AND The Depot Manager, APSRTC, Musheerabad, Hyderabad. .....RESPONDENT Petition under Article 226 of the constitution of India praying that in the circumstances stated in the Aﬃdavit ﬁled herein the High Court will be pleased to to issue a Writ or direction particularly one in the nature of Writ of Mandamus declaring that the action of the Respondent in passing the impugned proceedings and call for the records pertaining to A.P.S.R.T.C. vide No.02/95(08)/99-MSRD dated 6-7-1999, while imposing the penalty of diﬀerment of annual grade increment for a period of two years which shall hjave eﬀect on future increments and setaside the same as illegal, arbitrary and improper and null and void and pass such other order or orders Counsel for the Petitioner:MR.S.PRADEEP KUMAR Counsel for the Respondent No.: MR.K.MADHAVA REDDY The Court made the following : ORDER: In this writ petition, the petitioner has questioned the order dated 06-07-1999 passed by the respondent- Corporation vide proceedings No.02/95(08)/99-Msrd whereby the punishment of postponing of annual increment for a period of two years which shall have eﬀect on future increments imposed on him as illegal and arbitrary. The facts leading to the writ petition are that the petitioner was working as Conductor in Musheerabad depot of the respondent-Corporation and while he was conducting a bus bearing No.6335 on route No.6T on 06- 02-1999 at about 20.25 hours a check was exercised by the checking oﬃcials and having found certain cash and ticket irregularities, the petitioner was issued a charge memo and dissatisﬁed with the explanation oﬀered by him, the respondent-Corporation initiated disciplinary proceedings against him by framing charges vide proceedings No.02/95(5)/99-MSRD dated 13-02-1999 and asked him to submit his explanation and he was also placed under suspension. Though the petitioner failed to ﬁle his explanation to the charge sheet, a regular inquiry was ordered by the disciplinary authority by appointing the Chief Inspector attached to the Charminar Depot of the respondent-Corporation as inquiry officer. The inquiry oﬃcer issued a notice dated 26-04- 1999 to the petitioner and the same was not served on him. However, the petitioner received a notice dated 08- 06-1999 for the enquiry held on 21-06-1999. As the petitioner failed to attend the inquiry, in spite of service of notice, the inquiry oﬃcer conducted the inquiry ex parte and recorded his ﬁndings and submitted his report dated 28-06-1999 to the disciplinary authority. Based on the inquiry report, the impugned order of punishment was passed. The very grievance of the petitioner in this writ petition is that the punishment of postponing of annual increment for a period of two years which shall have eﬀect on future increments imposed on him is without proper inquiry and without issuing any show cause notice on conclusion of inquiry. It is also the case of the petitioner that the impugned order passed by the disciplinary authority is contrary to the judgment of Apex Court in the case of KULWANT SINGH GILL vs. THE STATE OF PUNJAB[1]. In the counter aﬃdavit ﬁled on behalf of the respondent-Corporation, while generally denying all the allegations, it is speciﬁcally stated that, in spite of issuing notice, the petitioner neither responded to the charge memo nor to the notice of the inquiry oﬃcer. It is also stated that based on the ﬁndings recorded by the inquiry oﬃcer the impugned order was passed and the same is in conformity to the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation Employees (Classiﬁcation, Control and Appeal) Regulations, 1967 (for short – ‘the Regulations’). Heard the learned counsel for petitioner and the learned standing counsel for respondent-Corporation. The disciplinary action against the employees of the Corporation is governed by the Regulations framed under Section 45(1) of the Road Transport Corporations Act, 1950 (Central Act 64 of 1950). Part IV of the Regulations deals with ‘Discipline’ and ‘Penalties’. Regulation 8 of the Regulations deals with various kinds of penalties and Regulation 12 of the Regulations deals with procedure for imposing penalties. In this case, from the pleadings on record, it is clear that a regular inquiry was conducted as per the procedure contemplated under the Regulations and in spite of an opportunity the petitioner did not choose to participate in the enquiry. The only ground raised in the writ petition is that on conclusion of enquiry the order inﬂicting the punishment was passed without giving further opportunity by way of a show cause notice. From a reading of Regulation 12 (13) of the Regulations it is clear that if the penalty proposed to be imposed is one of the penalties speciﬁed in items (vii) (viii) and (ix) of Regulation 8 of the Regulations, further opportunity should be provided to such employee by way of show cause notice. Since the other punishments mentioned in Regulation 8 of the Regulations are indicated to be minor, no further show cause notice is prescribed by Regulation 12 of the Regulations. In any event, the petitioner also did not plead any prejudice on account of non-issuing of such second show cause notice after conclusion of the inquiry and it is also to be noticed that even for the charge memo the petitioner did not respond by way of explanation and even he did not participate in the inquiry proceedings before the inquiry oﬃcer. In that view of the matter as the punishment imposed in the impugned order is not the one covered by items (vii), (viii) and (ix) of Regulation 8 of the Regulations, it cannot be said that the impugned order is not in conformity with the procedure contemplated by the Regulations. In view of the speciﬁc procedure contemplated under Regulation 12 of the Regulations, the judgment relied on by the learned counsel for the petitioner in the case of KULWANT SINGH GILL (1 supra) would not render any assistance in support of his argument. The writ petition is thus devoid of merits. Therefore, the writ petition is dismissed. No order as to costs. _______________________ R.SUBHASH REDDY, J 22nd October 2008 CVRK [1] 1990(6) SLR 73