RANCHI, India, Sept. 8 -- Jharkhand High Court issued the following order on Aug. 8:

1. Aggrieved by the dismissal of the writ petition being W.P. (C) No.1603 of 2014 vide order dated 14th August 2019 by the learned Single Judge, the petitioner has filed this Letters Patent Appeal.

2. The petitioner had joined service of the respondents on 02.03.1992 as an Assistant and thereafter he was promoted to the post of HGA.

3. A memorandum of charge came to be served upon the petitioner on 12.10.2011 alleging gross irregularities which are enumerated below-

(i) The CSE, while working as HGA (Sales), Dhanbad Branch 2, used password of Shri S.Y. Bhatt, the ABM (S), and Sri K.K. Das also the then ABM(S) for entering and validating wrong Commission payments through Add Pay Menu of FEAP;

(ii) He was instrumental in making commission payment to the tune of Rs.15,99,416/- without any supporting paper to 11 agents;

(iii) He used to approach the agents to whom these wrongful payments were made, to give amount to him for refunding the excess payments made to LIC. But he neither deposited the amount nor gave any receipt and thus, kept the amount with him for his personal gain. These amounts were refunded on a later date;

(iv) He had declared income from salary as sole source of income and his wife had declared that husband's income was her sole source of income when he was asked to furnish details of all bank accounts owned and operated by him or his wife individually or jointly. But he vide his letter dated 20.12.2010 did not disclose the bank account maintained by his wife which shows transactions much beyond his declared source of income. That undisclosed bank account showed heavy withdrawal on the date on which most of the amounts were refunded to LIC.

4. The petitioner was called upon to reply to the charges and in the reply so filed, he denied the allegations contained in the charge memo.

5. Not being satisfied with the reply, the respondents initiated departmental proceedings.

6. After conclusion of the enquiry, enquiry report was submitted revealing that all the charges against the petitioner had been proved.

7. The petitioner was called upon to file reply to the 2nd show-cause notice which the petitioner did. However, even this reply was not accepted and that led to the penalty order being imposed by the disciplinary authority by way of reduction in the basic pay to the minimum scale of HGA in terms of Regulation 39(1)(d) of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (Staff) Regulations, 1960 (for short "the Regulations").

8. The petitioner preferred an appeal. However, the same was rejected vide order dated 17.09.2013, constraining the petitioner to file writ petition before the Writ Court.

9. As observed above, the writ petition filed by the petitioner came to be dismissed leading to the filing of this appeal.

10. It is vehemently argued by Mr. A.K. Sahani, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner, that the findings recorded

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://hcservices.ecourts.gov.in/ecourtindiaHC/cases/display_pdf.php?filename=U%2BbhtlrLe2adAHN8Tz%2F1d5CxTPA7YxdwwqjtMr0yaT4frRoEvmzcn5MGebw%2FFY9Q&caseno=LPA/141/2020&cCode=1&cino=JHHC010072412020&state_code=7&appFlag=)

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