Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

3. The Statement of Imputation of misconduct in support of Articles of Charges framed against him were as under:-

Shri Subhash Rohilla while working as Accounts Assistant in PF section (Train Lighting seat) under Sr. DFM/DLI had committed the following serious irregularities.
1. Responsible for bogus posting of VPF:-
Sh. Subash Rohilla has made the entries of PF subscriptions in the account Sh. Shiv Shankar, PF A/c No. 0281439 of March paid in April, 2001 and April paid in May 2001 amounting to Rs. 358/- as subscription and 1500/- as VPF. The VPF posted by Sh. Subhash Rohilla in the account of Sh. Shiv Shankar is bogus. It clearly shows that he made the entries with vested interest without verifying the subscription vouchers.

5. The Applicant denied the aforesaid Articles of Charges and submitted his written statement of defence on 23.2.2006. As far as the first charge is concerned, he has stated that the entries of VPF were made with the help of Journals of respective months prepared in FormA 1308 as required under Para 908A of the Indian Railway Establishment Code; the amount of VPF that was shown hand written on computerized PF Journals of March 2001 and paid in April 2001 & April 2001 paid in May 2001 of PF No. 0281439 of Sh. Shiv Shankar was taken as objection items; the aforesaid fact was already disclosed to the dealer of the TL seat i.e. to Sh.Ramesh Chandra on 17.5.2001; the PF/VPF entries were made at the behest of the Section Officer PF-III when the actual dealer of the train lighting seat was on leave; the entries were made on 10.5.2001 evening at the order of the SSO/PF-III when not more than 3 staff members along with SSO were present in the PF-III section; the pre-check was conducted by the section which passed the pay bill before making over the PF schedule to the PF section; there was no vested interest in the matter but he was only obeying the order of the higher authorities, namely; the section incharge, the DAO/PF etc. who have given him only oral orders and no written orders for reasons best known to him; it was wrong to say that the entries were made without verifying the subscription vouchers but had applied his intuition while making those entries and acted as per the prescribed rules and the irregularity regarding hand written amount was taken in objectionable items statement, immediately; posting of PF/VPF has been made through PF deduction schedule and they were never posted through wages register as wages register is not a part of accounts record; and in the absence of original PF Journals of March 2001 paid in April 2001 and April 2001 paid in May 2001, it was impossible to say that posting were bogus. As far as the second charge is concerned, he has stated that the entries of VPF @ Rs.1000/- per month from April 1998 to October 1998 were already in existence in PF ledger of Sh. Narottam Singh PF No. 284169 in the year 1998-99 and those postings were not made by him but Sh. Mukesh Kumar Tech-II under SSE/TL/NDLs as is evident from the details prepared and submitted to Vigilance Branch by Sh. Mukesh Kumar on 26.5.2003 as well as the details prepared by Sh.Ramesh Chandra A/c Clerk PF on 26.05.2003; he has also not revised the closing and made any bogus entries; the tampering and increase in balance were done by someone else who made the postings of VPF amount and who revised the closing of Sh. Narottom Singh; however, in making closing of his account through minimum balance system, he must have committed some error of omission/clerical mistake in taking the amount of VPF; there was no vested interest or mala fide intentions as it was done at the behest of the Section Incharge; he had closed the PF account of Sh. Narttom Singh on 05.11.1999 under his dated signature; he put up ten PF advances to SSO/PF on 10.05.2001 and prepared CO7 on 11.5.2001; they were cleared in two days instead of one day as was alleged in the charge sheet; the PF advances were passed after PF amount was verified by Sh. Ramesh Chandra in PF withdrawal forms and countersigned by Sh. K.K. Sharma SSO/PF-III in the month of April, 2001 and there was adequate balance in PF ledger at the time of passing of the PF advances; the PF advances are passed when there was sufficient balance in PF ledger and the balance was also verified by the concerned dealing clerk as well as SSO/PF in PF withdrawal forms in duplicate; one copy remains in bill section responsible for preparing of pay order of PF and the other comes to accounts along with the pay order; the process of verifying the amount lying in PF was completed by the actual dealing clerk and SSO/PF in the month of April, 2001; the balance became inadequate after the postings were revised in the PF ledger by Sh. Ramesh Chander; there was no delay in passing the PF advances as they were passed within the prescribed period as per para 1110 of Indian Railway Code for the Accounts Department Part-I; as per para 901A of the aforesaid code, the responsibility for the internal check of all transactions pertaining to and the maintenance of the accounts of the State Provident Funds to which the personnel of the railway subscribe devolves upon the account officer; PF advances were passed as per instructions contained in railway boards letter No.F(P) 61/PF-1/21 of 15.09.61 which states in case of non-gazetted staff they are entitled to withdraw up to 90% of the total amount (i.e. compulsory subscription and government contribution plus interest standing to their credit; and the rule for marriage advance was also followed in toto while passing the PF advances. He has also furnished the documentary evidences in support of his aforesaid submission.

8.0 CONCLUSION AND FINDINGS.

In view of oral, documentary available on record and considering the defense submitted by CO, finding is as under:-

Charge No.1 stands proved as discussed in para 7.1 above.
Charge No.2 stands proved as discussed in para 7.2 above.
7. The Disciplinary Authority, vide his letter dated 27.03.2006, forwarded a copy of the said report to the Applicant inviting his comments and he, vide his letter dated 10.4.2008, submitted his comments. According to him, the finding of the Enquiry Officer that the subscription vouchers of the said period in question were also not made available by CO was not a part of the charge sheet issued to him; he was not the custodian of the subscription vouchers whereas Sh. Ramesh Chandra was the custodian; the IO used the defence brief to suit his purpose of holding that the charges have against him; he used Ex.P.2 against him whereas it was merely the detail of PF recovery of Sh. Shiv Shankar prepared by the TL/ DLI Staff, which was also not a reliable document as it was not part of the accounts record; it was the detail of the wages register and PF postings have not been made on the basis of wages register but on the basis of computerized PF subscription schedules/journals; the VPF amount Rs. 1500/- per month from May to March for the year 2000-01 in the PF ledger of Sh. Shiv Shankar has not been posted by him; the amount of Rs. 16500/- was not shown by him; he did close the account of Sh. Shiv Shankar and on examination of his PF ledger account for the year 2000-01 and 2001-02 it will become evident; the conclusion that he was intentionally doing the bogus posting in his PF account was false whereas he only just posted the amount of PF subscription and VPF for March 2001 paid in April 2001 and April 2001 paid in May 2001 in his PF ledger account in the year 2001-02; the amount of PF/VPF from April 1998 to October, 1998 of Shri Narottam Singh was not posted by him but it was posted by Sh. Mukesh Kumar, Tech-II under SSE/TL/NDLS; however, he admitted the fact that he had committed the error of omission/clerical mistake of taking the amount of VPF in closing the account of Sh. Narottam Singh through minimum balance system. He has also stated that charge regarding balance brought forward from 1997-98 to 1998-99 has not been levelled against him in the charge sheet. Neither tampering nor increasing the balance in PF account of Sh. Narottam Singh was done by him. As the amount of VPF for Rs. 7000/- was already available in the PF ledger of Sh. Narottam Singh. The same was taken in making the closing but it was left out owing to clerical mistake while drawing interest through minimum balance system. He has also asserted that closing was not revised by him. He has also made it clear that he was not able to attend the enquiry due to circumstance beyond my control.
Therefore, you are hereby removed from service with immediate effect.

9. The Applicant made an appeal dated 26.08.2008 against the aforesaid order of the Disciplinary Authority stating that the Sr. DFM was only his Disciplinary Authority but was not his Appointing Authority and under Railway servants (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, the punishment of removal from service could only be imposed by the appointing authority i.e. FA &CAO/Northern Railway, Baroda House, New Delhi. Hence punishment order was not sustainable and maintainable as they are null and void order in the eyes of law; the punishment order was issued without serving notice of punishment upon him as prescribed in the railway rules; he was not given any personal hearing before imposing the severest punishment upon him; in the punishment order, the word Fraud in PF Accounts has been willfully mentioned in bracket with mala-fide intention to give wrong impression to the Appellate Authority so that no leniency be done in his favour; he was removed from service only because he sought enhancement in subsistence allowance or revocation of suspension and it was brought to the notice of the Central Information Commission; the punishing authority has not mentioned any railway rule under which he has imposed upon the punishment of removal from service; even though the inquiry Officer submitted his report on 18.03.2006 and he submitted his representation on inquiry report on 10.04.2006 yet the Disciplinary Authority did not take action on it within the prescribed time limit of 365 days mentioned in the Model Time Schedule issued by Railway Board under Discipline and Appeal Rules; he took action only on 21.07.2008 i.e. after a period of more than two years which rendered the order time barred and consequently null and void; the order was also passed with mala-fide intention and to take revenge against him for reporting to the Central Information Commission regarding the Disciplinary Authoritys failure to provide him information under the Right to Information Act, 2005; vide letter No. 2003/D&AR/Vig./SR/DLI dated 27.02.2004, the Disciplinary Authority refused to supply the copy of wages register of Sh. Narottam Singh PF A/c No. 284169 of 1998-99 mentioned at Sr. No. 5 of Annexure III of charge sheet and due to non supply of the said document he could not submit his reply to the charge sheet and his defence helper could not cross examine the PW; he had informed the inquiry officer showing his inability to attend the inquiry at Delhi due to threats given to him by the official of the accounts department but the inquiry officer neither replied to his letters dated 14.12.2004, 28.12.2005 and 12.01.2006 nor changed the place of inquiry and thus did gross injustice to him by holding the inquiry ex-parte; the Enquiry Officer, vide order sheet dated 29.11.2005, stated that he proceeded with the inquiry ex-parte but he did not serve any notice to him or to his defence helper; in the inquiry report it was admitted by the Enquiry Officer that he received his defence brief along with ten Annexures through postal dak but the Enquiry Officer did not take any cognizance to them; even though the Enquiry Officer stated in his report that he considered the Applicants defence but actually, there was no such consideration; the Enquiry Officer has not proved anywhere in his report that he had taken any monetary gain in cash or kind from Sh. Shiv Shankar, Sh. Narottam Singh or from any of the seven persons whose PF pay orders were checked by him prior to rechecking of the Section Officer/PF and Divisional Accounts Officer/ PF; In fact, it was a case of bonafide mistake which could be excused; Therefore, the allegation levelled against him that he made the entries deliberately in VPF of Sh. Shiv Shankar was totally wrong and false. He has also stated that there was not a single independent departmental witness and the only witness in his case was Vigilance Inspector Sh. Ramesh Kumar Punhani. Mr. M. K. Sharma, Enquiry Officer himself was Ex. Vig. Inspector and friend of the Shri Punhani. The Enquiry Officer in his report included those allegations which were not part of the charge sheet thereby he exercised powers beyond his jurisdiction; he added more charges and held that they were proved. Thus, there was clear proof of misuse of power by the Enquiry Officer with mala-fide intention. He has also stated that he charge sheet was defective because in the first Article of charges there are two charges levelled against him whereas in the statement of imputation of misconduct, three charges are mentioned; no statement was made by him on 29.05.2002 as mentioned in the list of documents as per Sr. No. I of Annexure-III of the charge sheet; detail of PF advances was not prepared by him on 12.06.2002 as mentioned in the list of documents at Sr. No. 6 of Annexure-III of the charge sheet; the Disciplinary Authority imposed punishment of removal from service upon him by holding that those allegations against him which were never levelled against him in the charge sheet were proved; the disciplinary authority in the punishment order has stated that it was revealed that Rs. 1500/- were entered in the ledger in the month of April 2001 which was later on cut and endorsed as fake entries VPF got cancelled but this amount was figuring in the total amount of the employee. The said allegation was not the part of the charge sheet. Similarly, in the Disciplinary Authoritys order, it has been has stated that in Ex P-3, it is evident that an amount of Rs. 1500/- per month was shown against the column of VPF in the ledger of Sh. Shiv Shankar from the month of May to March for the year 2000-01 and an amount of Rs. 16500/- was shown as total amount of the PF in his PF ledger. Thus, the disciplinary authority gave him punishment on the basis of those charges which were never levelled against him in the charge sheet. The Disciplinary Authority has also attributed to him that entries of VPF were made with the help of PF journals of respective months prepared in Form A 1308 as required in Para 908 A but it was wrong that the PF entries were made without verifying the subscription vouchers. Further according to him, he was working on the seat of Sh. Ramesh Chander during his leave period on the verbal order of Section Officer PF III Sh. K. K. Sharma and after checking he has signed seven PF advances scrutinized by him and put up to DAO/PF. Thus he was working on the seat of Sh. Ramesh Chander with the permission of SO/PF III Sh. K. K. Sharma. Otherwise he would not have signed those seven PF advances; the seven pay orders were passed in two days not in one day as alleged in the order of the disciplinary authority; the balance of the seven PF advances was verified and attested by the dealer of TL seat Sh. Ramesh Chander and SO/PF III Sh.K.K. Sharma in the month of April 2001; the percentage check prescribed for the said purpose for sub-head and Supdt. were 70% and 75% respectively; the Efficiency Section of the Office of the FA&CAO were already completed by the dealer of TL seat and SO/PF III before passing the seven PF advances; therefore, he could not be held responsible for inadequate balance which was not verified by him or for bogus and forged entries which were never entered by him. Hence the order of removal from service by the disciplinary authority is null and void.