- (1.)HEARD Sri Neeraj Chitravansi for the petitioner and Sri Prashant Chandra Senior Advocate assisted by S/sri Shreesh Kumar and Sanjai Kumar.
(2.)THE petitioner Dr. Rajendra Kumar Dwivedi, while working as Registrar, Board of Indian Medicine, U. P, was subjected to disciplinary proceedings in re spect of several serious charges. A charge-sheet dated 20th June, "1998 was issued to him which was replied by him on 29th August, 1998. In all there were seven charges levelled against him with respect to alleged misconduct and ir regularities committed by him in his tenure as Registrar. THE Enquiry Officer submitted his report on 10. 12. 1998. THEreafter the order of punishment, namely, dismissal from service was passed on 11. 11. 1999 by the Director Ayurved/con-troller, Board of Indian Medicine, U. P. Lucknow.
The Enquiry Officer has found all the charges proved and the Director while passing the order of dismissal from service has taken into consideration the En quiry Officer's report and materials on record.

Apart from many other pleas raised by the Counsel for the petitioner chal lenging the order of punishment he has mainly argued that after submission of the reply to the charge-sheet the petitioner was not afforded the opportunity of cross-examining the witnesses or participate in the enquiry and in fact no enquiry was held. Further the Enquiry Officer did not advert to the material on record to see whether the charges stand proved or not but on the basis of the reply of the petitioner he has found the charges proved.

(3.)THE learned Counsel for the State after going through the enquiry record stated that after submission of the reply to the charge-sheet the Enquiry Officer did not afford any opportunity to the petitioner to participate in the enquiry; neither any witness was examined nor documents on which reliance was placed were also got proved by the Department.
Sri Prashant Chandra, learned Counsel appearing for the Board while de fending the order of dismissal urged that the conduct of the petitioner does not deserve any indulgence by the Court in its discretionary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. He however did not deny the fact that during the course of enquiry the Enquiry Officer did not afford any opportunity to the peti tioner and the plea raised in the counter-affidavit that since the petitioner did not ask for cross:examination of witnesses or personal hearing, is not sufficient to divest the petitioner of his right of participating in the enquiry but his argument is that charges are very serious and that even after passing of dismissal order dated 11. 11. 1999 the petitioner did not vacate the office nor the premises which was given to him while he was in service and continued to function on the said post for four years. The allegation is that during this period of four years also he has committed irregularities both financial and procedural. Relying upon the letter dated 2. 3. 2000 written by the petitioner himself to the Director Ayurved and Unani saying that order of dismissal has not been passed or issued by the competent authority, therefore, it has no effect nor effect can be given to the said order and, therefore, he will continue to occupy the post, Sri Prashant Chandra says that he not only gave this information to the Director but in fact he continued to function on the post despite the dismissal order and without challenging it in the Court of law. It was only after filing of Public Interest Litigation i. e. W. P. No. 5958 of 2000 (MB) and the notice being issued, the petitioner vacated the Office and later on residential premises.