Chhattisgarh High Court: <\/strong>Gautam Bhaduri, J., held that proper opportunity of hearing shall be given and procedure of rules of natural justice to be followed before passing appropriate orders in departmental enquiry.<\/p>\n The facts of the case are such that the petitioners, Toman Lal Sahu working as Head Constable and Chandrabhan Singh Bhadoriya as constable were both posted at Police Station Moudha Para, Raipur, City Kotwali. The telephonic conversations made between criminal Chhota Annu @ Anwar (a mastermind criminal) and the petitioners were recorded. The conversations depicted favoritism towards the criminal by the petitioners and CD transcripts were produced before the higher officials. The services were thus terminated on the basis of the telephonic\/mobile conversations by invoking power under Article 311(2) Clause (b), as such, no enquiry was held. The dismissal order was challenged which was thereby affirmed, assailing which instant petition was filed.<\/p>\n Counsel for the petitioners Mr N K Shukla submitted that the mandatory requirement of Article 311(2) (b) was not followed and no evidence was produced to prove that the voices were of the petitioners by a forensic expert or any co worker. It was further submitted that termination order was supplied on the basis of source of alleged conversation converted in a Compact Disk (C.D) but neither the source of CD was disclosed nor was it supplied. Moreover, in view of various judicial pronouncements, it is clear that action of State-Respondents cannot be allowed as recording of telephonic conversation offends Article 21 of the Constitution of India.<\/p>\n Counsel for the State Mr Somkant Verma opposed the prayer stating that as the criminal is notorious and the nature of conversation is extremely serious, getting evidence against him was not possible and hence departmental enquiry was dispensed with.<\/p>\n The court observed that a certain procedure which is required to be followed regarding the admissibility of the electronic record under Section 65-B of the Evidence Act has not been followed in the instant case. It was further observed that the action of respondents to dispense with the departmental enquiry before passing the dismissal orders on the basis of telephone tape conversation itself would be illegal.<\/p>\nFacts<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Submissions<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Observations <\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n