VIGILANCE MANUAL VOLUME III - AP Online

652 DECISION - 318
the orders of removal against the petitioner having been received after
the inquiry was ordered. Assuming that the second statement is also
taken into consideration, it will be still difficult to overlook the receipt,
and to hold that the petitioner is not guilty of the charges.
The High Court referred to an earlier decision in Writ Appeal
No. 909 of 1982 dated 18-12-1984 where it was held by a Division
Bench that in a case where the delinquent officer was charged for
submitting false hospitalisation claims it is not necessary to examine
the doctor, even though he was a material witness, to substantiate
the charge against the delinquent officer, when there was other
evidence to prove that false medical bills have been filed on behalf
of the said officer. It was held that may be the doctor’s evidence was
material, may be his evidence was important but that is a question
touching upon the adequacy of the evidence which the High Court
cannot go into under Article 226 of the Constitution. The Court can
interfere only if there is no evidence in support of the charges or in a
case where the finding of the conclusion is such that no reasonable
person would have arrived at it, to wit, perverse; but the High Court
cannot sit as an appellate court and weigh the evidence. The
judgment of the Division Bench clearly applies to the facts of this
case also. It may very well be said that the evidence of Raj Kumar is
of a material value in this matter and that since he has not been
examined the evidence against the petitioner is inadequate but that
does not mean that this is a case of no evidence whatsoever.
The High Court accepted the further contention of the
Corporation that if Raj Kumar was not examined by the Corporation,
it was open for the petitioner to summon him as a witness, relying on
the decision of the S.C. in Tata Oil Mills vs. Workman AIR 1965 SC
155 wherein it has been held that in a domestic enquiry the officer
holding inquiry can take no valid or effective steps to produce their
own witnesses.