VIGILANCE MANUAL VOLUME III - AP Online

244 DECISION - 37
(C) Preliminary enquiry
Fact-finding enquiry can be ex parte as it is only to
determine whether suspect officer should be
proceeded against.
(D) Charge — should contain necessary particulars
Charges must be specific and give necessary
particulars. Presumption that the delinquent official
knew the charges does not arise.
A. R. Mukherjee vs. Dy. Chief Mechanical Engineer,
AIR 1961 CAL 40
The petitioner was a clerk in the Eastern Railway. A report
was received from the Vigilance Officer and a fact-finding enquiry
was conducted on the allegation that some blank pass application
forms were filled with bogus names and a false rubber stamp was
affixed thereon together with a forged signature of a clerk in the
D.C.O.S. Office and were passed on to Mukherjee who was a clerk
in the Pass section. The fact-finding enquiry was exhaustive at which
witnesses were examined. On 26-6-58, a charge-sheet was issued
which read as follows: “(1) For fraudulent issue of 367 nos. of foreign
line passes (two II class and three hundred and sixty five III class) for
1085 ½ adults during the years 1956 and 1957 on false pass
applications alleged to have been forwarded from office of the District
Controller of Stores, Eastern Railway, Lillooah, involving a cost of
Rs. 17,415.18 P thereof which were neither received nor date stamped
in the Receiving Clerk of Pass Section. (2) For fraudulent disposal
of all the above passes by entering them in a separate peon-book
instead of sending them in the particular peon book in which all passes
issued on genuine pass applications are sent to office of the District
Controller of Stores, Lillooah and delivering to unauthorised persons
against some fictitious acknowledgement other than those employed
in the Pass Section of DCOS’s office with view for illicit gain.”
The petitioner in his explanation submitted that the chargesheet
was couched in vague generalisations although the disciplinary
action Rules clearly prescribed that the charge should be free from
ambiguities and should be clear. He requested that the charges be